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MAGIC 

WHITE AND BLACK 

OR 
THE SCIENCE OF FINITE AND INFINITE LIFE 

CONTAINING PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE, INSTRUCTION 

AND HINTS FOR ALL SINCERE STUDENTS 

OF MAGIC AND OCCULTISM 

BY 

FRANZ HARTMAN, M. D. 

AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE AND THE DOCTRINES" OF PARACELSUS, THE GREAT. 
FATHER OF ALL THE ALCHEMISTS. 

"For in our searching are fulfilled all our desires, and we obtain the 
victory over all worlds." — Khand. Upanishad. 



FAITHFULLY REPRODUCED FROM THE LONDON 
EDITION OF 1893, AND PREPARED FOR 
PUBLICATION FROM NEW PRINTING 
PLATES, UNDER THE EDITOR- 
SHIP OF 

DR. L. W. de LAURENCE 

WHO OWNS AND CONTROLS THE PUBLISHING RIGHTS OF THE LARGEST 

AND ONLY STANDARD LINE OF OCCULT AND MAGICAL WORKS 

BY THE OLD MASTERS AND ADEPTS EXTANT TODAY 

Author of "The Great Book of Magical Art, Hindu Magic and East 

Indian Occultism," "The Sacred Book of Death, Hindu 

Spiritism, Soul Transition and Soul Reincarnation," "The 

Mystic Text Book of the Hindu Occult Chambers," 

"The Magic and Occultism of India, the 

Wonders of the Magic Mirror, Hindu and 

Egyptian Crystal Gazing, Astral Auras 

and Colors," "The Immanence of 

God, Know Thyself," "God, 

the Bible, Truth and 

Christian Theology." 



de LAURENCE, SCOTT & CO., Chicago, 111., U. S. A. 

1910 






tfv 



Copyright, 1910 

By 

de LAURENCE, SCOTT & CO. 



SPECIAL, NOTICE 
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"Everything that exists upon the Earth has its ethereal coun- 
terpart above the Earth, and there is nothing, however insignifi- 
cant it may appear in the world, which is not depending on 
something higher; so that if the lower part acts, its presiding 
higher part reacts upon it." 

Sohar Wajecae, Fol. 156, 6. 




ILLUSION 



DESCRIPTION OF THE FRONTISPIECE. 

AT the foot of the picture is a sleeping Sphinx, whose 
upper part (representing the. higher principles) is 
human; while the lower parts (symbolising the lower 
principles) are of an animal nature. She is dreaming of 
the solution of the great problem of the construction of 
the Universe and of the nature and destiny of Man, and 
her dream takes the shape of the figure above her, repre- 
senting tht Macrocosm and the Microcosm and their mu- 
tual interaction. 

Above, around, and within all, without beginning and 
without an end, penetrating and pervading all, from the 
endless and unimaginable periphery to the invisible and 
incomprehensible centre is Parabrahm, the unmanifested 
Absolute, the supreme source of every power that ever 
manifested or may in the future manifest itself as a 
"thing," and by whose activity the world was thrown into 
existence, being projected by the power of His own will 
and imagination. 

The Omega (and the 'Alpha in the centre) represent 
the "Son," the Absolute having become manifest as the 
Universal Logos or The Christ, also called Buddhi, or the 
sixth, principle, the cause of the beginning and the end of 
every created thing. It is One with the "father," being 
manifested as a Trinity in a Unity, the cause of what we 
call Space, Motion, and Substance. Its highest mani- 
festation is Self -consciousness, by which it may come to 
the comprehension of Man. The spiritual man whose 
matrix is his own physical body, draws his nutriment 
from this universal spiritual principle as the physical 
foetus is nourished by means of the womb of the mother, 
his soul being formed from the astral influences of the 
soul of the world. 

Out of the Universal Logos proceeds the "invisible 
Light" of the Spirit, the Truth, the Law, and the Life, 

5 



6 DESCRIPTION OF THE FRONTISPIECE. 

embracing and penetrating the Cosmos and becoming 
manifest in the illuminated soul of Man, while the visible 
light of Nature is only its most material aspect or mode 
of manifestation, in the same sense as the visible sun is 
the reflex of its divine prototype, the invisible centre of 
power or the great spiritual Sun. 

The circle with the twelve signs of the Zodiac, enclos- 
ing the space in which the planets belonging to our solar 
system are represented, symbolizes the Cosmos, filled with 
the planetary influences pervading the Astral Light, and 
which are caused by the interaction of the astral emana- 
tions of the cosmic bodies and their inhabitants. 

The activity in the Cosmos is represented by the inter- 
laced triangle. The two outer ones represent the great 
powers of creation, preservation, and destruction, or 
Brahama, Vishnu, and Siva, acting upon the elements of 
Fire, Water, and Earth — that is to say, upon the original 
principles out of which ethereal, fluid and solid material 
substances and forms are produced. 

The two inner interlaced triangles refer more especially 
to the development of Man. B, C, and D represent 
Knowledge, the Knower, and the Known, which trinity 
constitutes Self-knowledge. E, F, and G represent the 
Physical Man, the Ethereal or Inner Man, and the Spirit- 
ual Man. The centre represents the divine Atma, being 
identical with the Universal Logos. It is, like the latter, 
a Trinity in a Unity.* It is the spiritual seed implanted 
in the soul of man, through whose growth immortal life 
is attained. Its light is the Rose of the Cross that is 
formed by Wisdom and Power. But below all is the 
realm of Illusion, of the most gross and heavy material- 
ized thoughts, sinking into Darkness and Death, where 
they decompose and putrefy, and are resolved again into 
the elements out of which the Universe came into exist- 
ence. 

* Of the three interlaced A's only one is distinctly drawn in the 
figure. 



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 

T^HIS book was originally written for the purpose of 
* disenchanting certain credulous inquirers, who 
fancied that the exercise of spiritual powers could be 
taught by teaching them certain incantations and for- 
mulas. It was to prove that spiritual powers must be 
developed before they can be exercised, and to explain 
the conditions necessary for their development. 

Since the appearance of the previous edition, a little 
additional knowledge, gained by the experiences of my 
own inner life, has enabled me to make certain correc- 
tions; to sift out much of what was irrelevant, and to 
remodel a great deal of what was incorrectly expressed. 
Moreover, in this edition an attempt has been made to 
answer the numerous questions which have been ad- 
dressed to me by the readers of "Magic." 

The most serious objection which has been made against 
this book has been on account of its title ; but the causes 
which induced me to select such a title were suggested by 
the purpose for which the book was intended ; nor would 
I at present be able to find one more appropriate for it, 
for "Magic" means that divine art or exercise of spiritual 
power by whicli the awakened spirit in man controls the 
invisible living elements in the soul-substance of the uni- 
verse ; but, above all, those in his own soul, which are the 
ones nearest to him. 

If we desire to master any forces whatever, it is, above 
all, necessary to know what they are and how they origin- 
ate, and as we have no better means to study the qualities 
of any internal forces, than by observing those which are 
active within ourselves, the perception of the processes 
going on within our own psychic organism, will be the 
means to accomplish our object. The art Magic is the 
exercise of spiritual power, to be obtained by practicing 
self-control, and this power cannot be acquired in any 

7 



8 PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 

otHer way ; nor is it possible to teach any one how to ex- 
ercise a power which he does not possess, because he has 
not developed it; we can only indicate the way in which 
the psychic powers latent in every human constitution 
may be developed. The constitutions of all men are fun- 
damentally the same, and in each human being are con- 
tained magical powers germinally or in a latent condition ; 
but they cannot be said to exist before they become active 
and manifest themselves, first interiorly, and afterwards 
in an outward direction. 

It was not my object in composing this book, to write 
merely a code of ethics, and thereby to increase the al- 
ready existing pile of moral precepts, but to assist the 
student of Occultism in studying the elements of which 
his own soul is composed, and to learn to know his own 
psychical organism. I want to give an impulse to the 
study of a science, which may be called the "anatomy and 
physiology of the soul'' which investigates the elements of 
which the organism of the soul is composed, and the 
source from which man's desires and emotions spring. 

Physical science has advanced with great strides in the 
real of superficial phenomena and external illusions, but 
the science of the real interior and invisible man is still 
very little known. The mechanical and chemical forces 
of nature have been made subservient to physical science. 
She has laid the yoke upon the neck of the giant Steam 
and chained Electricity to her triumphal chariot ; she made 
mechanical motion, heat, and light, and magnetism the 
obedient slaves of men ; she made discoveries which make 
man to a certain extent independent of the conditions im- 
posed upon him by space and time ; she succeeded in real- 
izing certain ideas and to put them into practical execu- 
tion, ideas which a century ago were believed to belong 
merely to the realm of the fancies of the visionary and 
the dreamer. 

Why should we stop here ? Why should it not be pos- 
sible for us to advance still further, and to enchain those 
semi-conscious and conscious forces which pervade our 
own soul, and also the soul of the world? Why should it 
be impossible to condense into forms by the omnipotent 
power of Will the living but formless Elementals; to con- 



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EMTION. 9 

centrate and give shape to living and universal principles, 
which, although they are at present invisible for us, never- 
theless exist? Such things have been accomplished by 
the Eastern sages thousands of years ago, and may be 
accomplished by ourselves, provided we attain the same 
state of perfection which characterizes these Adepts. 

To arrive at this end the merely superficially intellectual 
reading of books on Occultism is entirely insufficient. The 
divine mysteries of nature are above and beyond the 
power of conception of the limited intellect. They must 
be grasped by the power of the spirit. If we cannot by 
our own soul perception perceive a spiritual truth with 
the eye of the spirit, intellectual reasoning and book learn- 
ing will not enable us to perceive it clearly. Books, deal- 
ing with such subjects, should not be masters to us ; they 
should merely be our assistants. They are merely useful 
to describe the details of things which we already know 
in the depths of our soul ; they are merely servants to hold 
up before our eyes magnifying mirrors, wherein we see 
the truths, whose presence we feel in ourselves. 

Jacob Boehme, the great theosoph, says in regard to the 
study of Occultism: "If you desire to investigate the 
divine mysteries of nature, investigate first your own 
mind, and ask yourself about the purity of your purpose. 
Do you desire to put the good teachings which you may 
receive into practice for the benefit of humanity? Are 
you ready to renounce all selfish desires, which cloud your 
mind and hinder you to see the clear light of eternal 
truth ? Are you willing to become an instrument for the 
manifestation of Divine Wisdom? Do you know what it 
means to become united with your own higher Self, to get 
rid of your illusive Self, to become one with the living 
universal power of Good and to die to your own shadowy 
insignificant terrestrial personality? Or do you merely 
desire to obtain great knowledge, so that your curiosity 
may be gratified, and that you may be proud of your 
science, and believe yourself to be superior to the rest of 
mankind ? Consider, that the depths of Divinity can only 
be searched by the divine spirit itself, which is active 
within you. Real knowledge must come from our own 
interior, not merely from externals, and they who seek 



10 PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EBITION. 

for the essence of things merely in externals, may find the 
artificial colour of a thing, but not the true thing itself." 

Again this self-taught philosopher says : "The intellect 
should be developed, but above all the heart. We should 
attempt to understand intellectually the laws of every- 
thing; but our own still fallible intellect should be made 
the starting-point in our investigations. Man should not 
be governed by his reasoning from appearances; but he 
should govern his mind, so that the light of divine wisdom 
may illuminate his intellect. If our judgment becomes 
free of all selfish taint, and the vibrations of our soul are 
made to vibrate in harmony with the eternal spirit, our 
perishable intellect will be penetrated by the imperishable 
light of divine wisdom; and we will be able to perceive 
and to solve the deepest problems of nature. If our de- 
sire and reason cling to the sphere of self, we shall see 
merely the illusions which we ourselves have created ; but 
if we become free by being obedient to the universal law, 
we will become one with the law and see the truth in its 
purity." 

And to this we will add, as a warning to all inquirers, 
that a scientific investigation of the occult mysteries of 
nature, without that firm foundation furnished by the 
development of true spirituality, is exceedingly dangerous 
and leads to deplorable consequences. The perception of 
things which belong to the spirit is a faculty of the spirit- 
ually developed man and not within the reach of the semi- 
material mind. He who continually pores over things 
which he cannot comprehend lives in the realm of his 
dreams; he becomes an unpractical person, incapable to 
fulfill his duties in life, and often insanity and suicide is 
the result. The school of the occultist is only for those 
who have graduated in the school of terrestrial life. 

Let, therefore, those who wish to acquire spiritual or 
divine power, follow this advice : let them rise spiritually 
into the highest regions of thought and remain therein as 
its permanent residents. Let them cultivate their physical 
bodies and their mental constitutions in such a manner 
that the matter of which they are composed will become 
less gross and more penetrable to the divine light of the 
spirit. Then will the veils that separate them from the 



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EMTION. 11 

invisible world become thinner; then will they become 
aware of the fact that the circle which limits their terres- 
trial and phenomenal existence is merely a small segment 
of that grand circle wherein their existence as self-con- 
scious beings on the spiritual plane is enclosed, and as they 
increase in transcendental knowledge they will grow in 
spiritual power, until, by the understanding of the divine 
laws of the universe, they will become the co-operators of 
God, and God will perform His miracles in and through 
them. 

The following pages are an attempt to show the way 
how Man may become an instrument of the Divine Power 
whose product is Nature; they constitute a book which 
may properly bear the title of "Magic," for if the readers 
succeed in practically following its teachings, they will be 
able to witness the greatest of all magical feats, the spirit- 
ual regeneration of Man. 



PREFACE. 

f~)UR age is the age of opinions. The majority of our 
educated people live, so to say, in their heads, and 
the claims of the heart are neglected. Vanity is king, and 
wisdom is only permitted to speak when it does not come 
into conflict with selfish ©onsiderations. The guardians of 
a narrow limited science delude themselves with a belief 
of being capable to bring the infinite truth within the 
grasp of their finite understanding, and whatever they 
fail to comprehend is asserted not to exist. Our specula- 
tive philosophers refuse to recognize the eternal power of 
universal love whose light is reflected in the human soul ; 
they wish to examine eternal truths by the flickering can- 
dle-light of their logic, reasoning from the basis of sensual 
observations ; they forget that Humanity is a Unity, and 
that one individual cannot encompass the All ; and the 
ignorant asks scientific reasons why man should be faith- 
ful and true, and why he should not consider his own per- 
sonal interests above those of the rest of mankind. 

It is universally admitted that man's final destiny can- 
not depend on the theories which he may have formed in 
his mind regarding Cosmology, Pneumatology, plans of 
salvation, &c, and as long as he possesses no real knowl- 
edge, one set of beliefs or opinions may perhaps be as 
good as another ; but it cannot be denied, that the sooner 
man frees himself of the erroneous opinions of others and 
opening his own eyes recognizes the real truth, the less 
will he be impeded by the obstacles which are in the way 
of his higher evolution, and the sooner will he reach the 
summit of his final perfection. 

The most important questions seem, therefore, to be: 
"Is it possible that a man should actually know anything 
transcending his sensual perception, unless it is told to him 
by some supposed authority ? Can the power of intuition 

13 



14 PREFACE. 

be developed to such an extent as to become actual knowl- 
edge without any possibility of error, or shall we always 
be doomed to depend on hearsay and opinions ? Can any 
individual man possess powers transcending those which 
are admitted to exist by modern science, and how can 
such transcendental powers be acquired?" 

The following pages were written for the purpose of 
attempting to answer such questions, by calling the atten- 
tion of those who desire to know the truth to a considera- 
tion of the true nature of Man and of his position in the 
Universe. Thse who already know these things of course 
will not need the instructions which these pages contain, 
but to those who desire to know they may be of some use, 
and to the latter we recommend the advice given by Gau- 
tama Buddha to his disciples : "Believe nothing which is 
unreasonable, and reject nothing as unreasonable without 
proper examination." 

This book was not written for the purpose Of convinc- 
ing sceptics of the fact that phenomena of an occult char- 
acter have taken place in the past and are occurring at 
present; though an attempt has been made to prove the 
possibility of mystic occurrences by offering some explana- 
tion in regard to the laws by which they may be produced. 
No space has been devoted to lengthy illustrative ex- 
amples of phenomena. Those who require them will find 
such evidence in the books whose titles have been given 
at the foot of the pages. 



CONTENTS OF 
MAGIC 
WHITE. AND BLACK 



INTRODUCTION. 

SPIRITUAL LAW IN THE NATURAL WORLD. 

Page 

The meaning of "Magic" — The Life principle — Man's 
spiritual nature — Magicians and mediums — Man and 
the universe — The inner world — God, science, religion, 
superstition — Mystic and mysticism — Truth and fiction 
— The Bible allegories — Soul-knowledge and brain- 
speculation — Self-knowledge and theories — Realisa- 
tion by experience — Selfishness — The false Egos— Ele- 
mental — Spiritual germs and their growth — Asceticism 
— Visionaries and dreamers — The wisdom religion — 
The "sons of darkness" and the "children of light" — 
Spiritual evolution 23 

CHAPTER I. 

THE IDEAL. 

The ideal self— Realisation of ideals — Truth — Meditation — 
Prayer — God prays to himself — Interior revelation — The 
universal ideal — Christianity — Theosophists — Identity of 
revelations — Perception of truth — Self-control — Intui- 
tion and logical inferences — The Adepts — False science — 
Nature — Medicine of the future — Faith is spiritual 
knowledge — Mind-substance — Invisible beings — Object 
of life and its necessities — Alchemy 49 

CHAPTER II. 

THE REAL AND THE UNREAL. 

Primordial essence — The abstract ideas — Character and pur- 
pose — Reincarnation — The Ego — Self-consciousness be- 
fore and after death — The spiritual man — Relative exis- 
tence — Unreality of external appearances — Matter and 
motion — Consciousness — Objective and subjective exis- 
15 



16 CONTENTS. 

tence — The unknown One — Imagination — Perception — 
The "Fall" — Creation — The inner senses — States of 
mind — Dualism — God and idols 67 

CHAPTER III. 

FORM. 

Creation of forms — Spirit — Soul — Matter — The seven prin- 
ciples — The four planes of existence — The "resurrection 
of the flesh" — Spheres and auras — Psychic emanations 
—Physical and astral forms — Elementaries — "Material- 
isations" — Necromancy — "Doubles" — Wraiths — Appari- 
tions — Ghosts — Spirits of nature — Gnomes — Sylphs — 
Undives — Salamanders — Spiritual beings — Planetary 
spirits — Emotions and their origin — Organisation of 
forms on the various planes — Daemons Obsession — 
Spirits of music — The Creator and his creatures — 
Witchcraft — Astral appearances — Spiritism — Spooks — 
Spirits of the "dead" — Devas — Unconscious exercise of 
magic power — Protection against evil spells 85 

CHAPTER IV. 

LIFE. 

The will and the life — Expression of character — Chiromancy 
— Psychometry— Reincarnation of soul — Individuality 
— Indifferentiation of form and of character — Change of 
character — Individuality — Change of purpose — The ideal 
realises itself — Spirituality — Delusion of separatedness 
— Isolation — Vampires — Incubi and succubi — Elemen- 
taries — "Killing out" passions — Change of desires — The 
dreamer and the realist — Life transfer — Suspension of 
life— Evolution—The Elixir of Life 110 

CHAPTER V. 

HARMONY. 

Harmony — The music of the spheres — Spirituality and scien- 
tific curiosity — Unity of the Law — Variety of forms — 
Karma — Accords and discords — Numbers — Number One 
— Periodicity— Magic squares — Number Seven— Love 
and life— Man and woman— The true marriage— Hu- 
manity and divinity— Induction— Food for the physical 
body— Nutriment of the soul— "Sin"— Suffering and its 
necessity— Exoerience— Purification— The spiritual or- 
ganism—Adoration—Meditation—Efficacy of prayer — 
Illumination 



CONTENTS. I 17 

CHAPTER VI. 

ILLUSIONS. 

Imagination — Two worlds — The Dwellers of the Threshold 
— Reason and Truth — Illusions and appearances — Prosti- 
tution of principles — Starvation of soul — "Self" — Money 
— Possession — "Love" — Celibacy — Life an illusion — Sci- 
ence — Intellectuality without spirituality — Ambition — 
Power — Fame — Authority — Fear — Doubt — Remorse — 
Sins — The "Lamb" — Obedience — Reason — Passive im- 
agination — Visions — Artificial means for including hal- 
lucinations — Fumigations — Magic mirrors — Fortune-tell- 
ing — Meditation — Exercise of the will — "Mesmerism" 
and "hypnotism" — Unreality of illusions — Mediumship — 
Responsibility — Power of the imagination — States after 
death — Materiality and density — Heaven and hell — 
Happiness 143 

CHAPTER VII. 

CONSCIOUSNESS. 

Mind—Absolute and relative consciousness — Realisation of 
existence — Perception — Development of the senses — 
Light and darkness — Resistance — Astral Light — Astral 
forms— Haunted houses — Sight and touch — True self- 
consciousness — Reason and reasoning — Muscular con- 
sciousness — Astral consciousness — Obsessions — Thought- 
body — Apparitions — Double consciousness — Projection 
of the astral form — The Kama rupa — Double memory 
— The inner man — Somnambulism and trance — Two lives 
— Two souls — Two attractions — Spiritual consciousness 
— Wisdom— Organisation— Regeneration— The spiritual 
body 164 

CHAPTER VIII. 

UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 

Knowledge is life— Ignorance is death — Relative life and 
relative death — Physical death — Immortality — Nir- 
manakayas — Death is change — God redeems himself — 
Principles and forms — Living corpses or shells — In- 
sanity—Process of dying— The astral form— Letter 
from an Adept— Kama loca— Animal souls — Heaven 
and hell — Post-mortem consciousness— Devachan— The 
mystic death— Spiritualism and spiritism— Communica- 
tions from the "departed"— Conscious immortality-^ 
Ubject of life — Reincarnation— Assuming a new body 



18 CONTENTS. 



— Shall we know each other after death? — Degradation 
is death — Black magic — White magic — Evolution — 
Permanent love 183 



CHAPTER IX. 

TRANSFORMATIONS. 

Memory — The Astral Light — Impressions and temptations 
— Responsibility — Crimes — Capital punishment — Clair- 
voyance — Seership — Amulets — The Mumia — Mysterious 
powers of precious stones — Action of drugs — Primor- 
dial matter — Single bodies of chemistry — Transforma- 
tion — Will and imagination — Alchemy in its three as- 
pects — Projection of thought — Mental epidemics — Re- 
ceptivity — Occult phenomena — H. P. Blavatsky — Con- 
trolling the thoughts — The Master — Wisdom — Accumu- 
lation of energy — Manifestations of consciousness — Or- 
ganisation required — The divine Man — The Redeemer. . . 204 

CHAPTER X. 

CREATION. 

The great mystery — Man — Memory and forgetting — Man 
the Creator of his world — Self-made men — Material 
and spiritual nature — Cosmology — Mythology — Animal 
food — Practical occultism — Union — Faith and doubt — 
Action — Development of will-power — Experiences of 
life — Truth and error — Duty — Knowledge — Belief — The 
"Path"— Rules of life 227 



CHAPTER XI. 

LIGHT. 

Spirit and form — Freedom — Personality and individuality 
— The permanent and the impermanent — Hermes Tris- 
megistus — The Saviour — The Lord — The true baptism, 
forgiveness of sins, communion, marriage — The true 
and universal church — The "Son of Man" — Birth of the 
Christ— Biblical "history"— Prayer— The true Faith- 
Soul knowledge — Physical effects of regeneration — Suf- 
fering — The true Rosicrucians and their symbols — In- 
itiation — Spiritual nutriment — Ceremonies — Jesus of 
Nazareth — Redemption — Allegories — "Faust" — Real 
knowledge— Unselfishness— Good and evil — The un- 
pardonable sin « • • 250 



CONTENTS. 19 

CHAPTER XII. 

THEOSOPHY. 

Beauty beyond the power to describe it — The spiritual Sun 
— Divine Wisdom the realisation of Truth — The Phil- 
osopher's Stone — The Elixir of Life and Universal 
Panacea — Magic power — The Path — To know — Forbid- 
den knowledge — True knowledge — To will — Love the 
fountain of true knowledge — Development of will- 
power — To dare is obedience to the law — Strengthen- 
ing of self-will — Fakirs — Hatha yoga — Philosophical 
and theosophical courage — Self-sacrifice — To be silent — 
Jackob Boehme — Raja yoga — Instructions — Symbols — 
Language — The threefold word — The language of na- 
ture — Universal language — Thought, word, and action 
—Mystic symbols — The five-pointed star — The double 
interlaced triangle — The cross — The Brothers of the 
golden and rosy cross — The true cross — The self reali- 
sation of Truth 267 



APPENDIX. 

A NEW GUIDE ON THE PATH. 



MAGIC. 



MAGIC 

WHITE AND BLACK. 
INTRODUCTION. 

SPIRITUAL LAW IN THE NATURAL WORLD. 
"There is no religion higher than truth." 

WHATEVER misinterpretation ancient or modern 
ignorance may have given to the word Magic, its 
only true significance is The Highest Science, or Wisdom, 
based upon knowledge and practical experience. 

If you doubt whether there is any such thing as Magic, 
and if you desire any practical illustration about it, 
open your eyes and look around you. See the world, the 
animals, and the trees, and ask yourself whether they 
could have come into existence by any other power than 
by the magic power of nature. Magical power is not a 
supernatural power, if by the term "supernatural" you 
mean a power which is outside, beyond, or locally above 
nature. To suppose the existence of such a power is an 
absurdity and a superstition, opposed to all our experi- 
ence ; for we see that all organisms, vegetable and animal 
ones, grow by the action of internal forces acting outward- 
ly, and not by having something added to their substance 
from the outside. A seed does not become a tree, nor a 
child a man, by having substance added to its organism by 
some outside workman, or like a house which is built by 
putting stones on the top of each other ; but living things 
grow by the action of an internal power, acting from a 
centre within the form. To this centre flow the influences 
coming from the universal storehouse of matter and mo- 

21 



22 MAGIC. 

tion, and from there they radiate again towards the 
periphery, and perform that labour which builds up the 
living organism. 

But what else can such a power be, except a spiritual 
power, because it penetrates to the very centre of ma- 
terial things. It acts according to law, and builds up or- 
ganisms according to a certain order, and is therefore 
superior to blind mechanical force. It cannot be a mere 
mechanical force; for we know that a mechanical force 
ceases as soon as the impulse which originated it ceases to 
act, while the stream of life is inexhaustible, and only the 
forms in which it becomes manifest die. It cannot be a 
chemical force, for chemical action ceases when the chemi- 
cal combination of the substances which were to combine 
has taken place. It must therefore be a living power, and, 
as life cannot be a product of a dead form, it can be noth- 
ing else but the power of the One Life, acting within the 
life-centres of the forms. 

Nature is a magician, every plant, animal, and every 
man is a magician, who uses his powers unconsciously and 
instinctively to build up his own organism; or, in other 
words, every living being is an organism in which the 
magic power of the spirit in nature acts; and if a man 
should attain the knowledge how to control this power of 
life, and to employ it consciously, instead of merely sub- 
mitting unconsciously to its influence, then he would be a 
magician, and could control the processes of life in his 
own organism, and perhaps in that of other beings. 

Now the question is: Can any man obtain such a 
power as to control the processes of life ? The answer to 
this question depends on what you mean by the term 
"man." If you mean by "man" an intellectual animal, 
such as we meet every day in the streets, then the answer 
is : No! for the majority of the men and women of our 
present generation, including our greatest scientific 
lumens, know absolutely nothing about their own inner 
nature or about the universal power of the One Life, and 
many of them have not even made up their minds whether 
or not they will believe in the existence of their own soul. 
They can neither see it nor feel it objectively, and there^ 
fore they do not know what to make of it. 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

But if you mean by "man" that intelligent principle, 
which is active within the organism of man, and which 
constitutes him a human being, and by whose action he 
becomes a being very distinct from and superior to ani- 
mals in human or animal form, then the answer is : Yes! 
for the divine power which acts within the organism of 
man is the same and identical power which acts withn the 
centre of nature. It is an internal power of man, and be- 
longs to man's true self, and if man once knows all the 
powers which belong to his essential constitution, and 
knows how to use them, then he may enter from the pas- 
sive into the active state, and employ these powers him- 
self. 

Absurd as it may seem, it is nevertheless a logical con- 
sequence drawn from the fundamental truths about the 
constitution of man, that if a man could control the uni- 
versal power of life acting within himself, he might pro- 
long the life of his organism as long as it pleased to him ; 
if he could control it, and knew all the laws of his nature, 
he might render it dense or vaporous, concentrate it to a 
small point, or expand it, so as to occupy a great deal of 
space. Verily, truth is stranger than fiction, and we might 
see it, if we could only rise above the narrow conceptions 
and prejudices which we have inherited and acquired by 
education and sensual observation. 

The most strange things happen continually in nature, 
and hardly attract our attention. They do not seem 
strange to us although we do not understand them ; merely 
because we are accustomed to see them every day. Who 
would be so "foolish" as to believe that a tree could grow 
out of a seed — as there is evidently no tree in the seed — if 
his experience had not told him that trees grow out of 
seeds in spite of all arguments to the contrary! Who 
would believe that a flower would grow out of a plant, if 
he had not seen it, for observation and reason show that 
there is no flower in the stalk? Nevertheless, flowers 
grow, and cannot be disputed away. 

Everywhere in nature the action of a universal spiritual 
law is manifest, but we cannot see the law itself. Every- 
where we see the manifestations of wisdom; but those 



24 MAGIC. 

who seek for the origin of wisdom within their own brains 
will seek for it in vain. 

The art of Magic is the art of employing invisible or so- 
called spiritual agencies to obtain certain visible results. 
Such agencies are not necessarily invisible entities, flitting 
about in vacant space, ready to come at the command of 
anyone who has learned certain incantations and ceremo- 
nies ; but they consist principally in the unseen but never- 
theless powerful influences of the Emotions and the Will, 
of desires and passions, thought and imagination, love and 
hate fear and hope, faith and doubt, &c, &c. They are 
the powers of what is called the Soul ; they are employed 
everywhere and by everybody every day, consciously or 
unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, and while those 
that cannot control or resist such influences, but are con- 
trolled by them, are passive instruments, "Mediums" 
through which such unseen powers act, and often their 
unwilling slaves ; those who are able to guide and control 
such influences by gaining control over themselves, are, in 
proportion to their controlling capacity, active, and power- 
ful, and true Magicians, and may employ their powers for 
good or for evil. We see, therefore, that with the excep- 
tion of irresponsible persons, every one who has any will 
power is, in so far as he exercises that will power, an ac- 
tive Magician; a white magician if he employs them for 
good, a black magician if he uses them for the purposes of 
evil. 

There are people in the East and some in the West, 
through whom extraordinary feats, such as are usually 
classified as "Magic," are performed ; but it does not logic- 
ally follow that such people are therefore conscious Magi- 
cians; it only shows that the power which acts through 
their organism, is a magic power, and the supposed "Ma- 
gician" may be merely the instrument through which in- 
visible intelligent powers perform such feats, and he may 
not even know who or what such a power is. 

We all cannot honestly say "we have life" ; for life does 
not belong to us, and we cannot control or monopolize it. 
All we can say without arrogance and presumption is, that 
we are instruments through which the universal One Life 
manifests itself in the form of a human being. We are all 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

Mediums, through which the universal One Life acts. 
Only when we know our own selves and can control the 
life-principle within ourselves, can we become our own 
Masters. He who thinks that he has any power whatever 
of his own, thinks foolish : for all the powers he has are 
lent him by nature, or — more correctly speaking — by that 
eternal spiritual power, which acts in and from the centre 
of nature, and which men have called "God," because they 
have found it to be the source of all good ; the one Reality 
within the universe and within every being. 

No one will deny that Man, besides having physical 
powers, is also temporally endowed with mental and even 
spiritual energies. We love, respect, or obey a person, not 
on account of his superior bodily strength, but on account 
of his intellectual and moral worth, or while we are under 
the spell of some real or imaginary authority, that we may 
believe him to possess. A king or a bishop has, as a per- 
son, not necessarily any more physical power than his 
lackey or butler, and must make himself known before he 
will be obeyed ; a captain may be bodily the weakest man 
in his company and still his soldiers obey him. We love 
beauty, harmony, and sublimity, not on account of their 
usefulness for material purposes, but because they satisfy 
a corresponding inner sense, which does not belong to the 
physical plane; civilization gains ground, more by moral 
and intellectual influences than by the power of the bayo- 
net, and it is a true saying, that in our age the pen is 
mightier than the sword. 

What would be a world without the magic power of 
love of beauty and harmony? How would a world look 
if made after a pattern furnished by modern science ? A 
world in which the universal power of truth were not rec- 
ognized could be nothing else but a world of maniacs and 
filled with hallucinations. In such a world art and poetry 
could not exist, justice would become a convenience, hon- 
esty be equivalent with imbecility, to be truthful would be 
to be foolish, and the idol of "Self" the only god worthy 
of any consideration. 

Magic may be said to be that science which deals with 
the mental and moral powers of man, and shows what 
control he may exercise over himself and other. In order 



26 MAGIC. 

to study the powers of man it is necessary to investigate 
what Man is, and what relation he bears to the universe, 
and such an investigation, if properly conducted, will show 
that the elements which compose the essential man are 
identical with those we find in the universe ; that is to say, 
that the universe is the Macrocosm, and man — its true 
copy — the Microcosm. 

Microcosmic man and the Macrocosm of nature are 
one. How could it be possible that the Macrocosm should 
contain anything not contained within the Microcosm or 
that man should have something within his organism, 
which cannot be found within the grand organism of 
nature? Is not man the child of nature, and can there be 
anything within his constitution which does not come from 
his eternal father and mother? If man's organization con- 
tained something unnatural, he would be a monster, and 
nature would spew him out. Everything contained in 
nature can be found within the organism of man, and 
exists therein either in a germinal or developed state; 
either latent or active, and may be perceived by him who 
possesses the power of self-knowledge. 

We are born into a world in which we find ourselves 
surrounded by physical objects. There seems to be still 
another — a subjective — world within us, capable of receiv- 
ing and retaining impressions from the outside world. 
Each one is a world of its own, with a relation to space 
different from that of the other. Each has its days of 
sunshine and its nights of darkness, which are not regu- 
lated by the days and nights of the other, each has its 
clouds and its storms, and shapes and forms of its own. 

As we grow up we listen to the teachings of science to 
try to find out the true nature of these worlds and the 
laws that govern them, but physical science deals only 
with forms, and forms are continually changing. She 
gives only a partial solution of the problems of the objec- 
tive world, and leaves us in regard to the subjective world 
almost entirely in the dark. Modern science classifies 
phenomena and describes events, but to describe how an 
event takes place is not sufficient to explain why it takes 
place. To discover causes, which are in themselves the 
effects of unknown primal causes, is only to evade one 



INTRODUCTION. B7 

difficulty by substituting another. Science describes some 
of the attributes of things, but the first causes which 
brought these attributes into existence are unknown to her, 
and will remain so, until her powers of perception will 
penetrate into the unseen. 

Besides scientific observation there seems to be still an- 
other way to obtain knowledge of the mysterious side of 
nature. The religious teachers of the world claim to have 
sounded the depths which the scientists cannot reach 
Their doctrines are supposed by many to have been re- 
ceived through certain divine or angelic revelations, pro- 
ceeding from a supreme, infinite omnipresent, and yet per- 
sonal, and therefore limited external Being, the existence 
of which has never been proved. Although the existence 
of such a being is — to say the least — exceedingly doubtful, 
yet men in all countries have bowed down in terror before 
its supposed dictates ; ready to tear each other's throats at 
a sign of its supposed command, and willing to lay down 
their money, their lives, and even their honour at the feet 
of those who are looked upon as the confidants or deputies 
of a god. Men and women are willing to make themselves 
miserable and unhappy in life for the purpose of obtain- 
ing some reward after they live no more. Some waste 
their life in the anticipation of joys in a life of which they 
do not know whether or not it exists ; some die for fear of 
losing that which they do not possess. Thousands are 
engaged in teaching others that which they themselves do 
not know, and in spite of a very great number of religious 
systems' there is comparatively little religion at present 
upon the Earth. 

The term Religion is derived from the Latin word 
religere, which may be properly translated "to bind back." 
or to "relate." Religion, in the true sense of the term, 
implies that science which examines the link which exists 
between man and the cause from which he originated, or, 
in other words, which deals with the relation which exists 
between man and God, for the true meaning of the term 
"God" is Supreme First Cause, and Nature is the effect of 
its manifestation. True religion is therefore a science far 
higher than a science based upon mere sensual perception, 
but it cannot be in conflict with what is true in science. 



28 MAGIC. 

Only what is false in science must necessarily be in 
conflict with what is true in religion, and what is false 
in religion is in conflict with what is true in science. 
True religion and true science are ultimately one and 
the same thing, and therefore equally true; a religion 
that clings to illusions, and an illusory science, are equally 
false, and the greater the obstinacy with which they 
cling to their illusions the more pernicious is their effect. 

A distinction should be made between "religion" and 
"religionism;" between "science" and "scientism;" be- 
tween "mystic science" and "mysticism" 

The highest aspect of Religion is practically the union 
of man with the Supreme First Cause, from which his 
essence emanated in the beginning. 

'Its second aspect teaches theoretically the relations 
existing between that Great First Cause and Man; in 
other words, the relations existing between the Macro- 
cosm and Microcosm. 

In its lowest aspect religionism consists of the adula- 
tion of dead forms, of the worshipping of fetiches, of 
fruitless attempts to wheedle oneself into the favour of 
some imaginary deity, to persuade "God" to change His 
mind, and to try to obtain some favours which are not in 
accordance with justice. 

Science in her highest aspect is the real knowledge of 
the fundamental laws of Nature, and is therefore a spirit- 
ual science, based upon the knowledge of the spirit within 
one's own self. 

In its lower aspect it is a knowledge of external phe- 
nomena, and the secondary or superficial causes which 
produce the latter, and which our modern scientism mis- 
takes for the final cause. 

In its lowest aspect scientism is a system of observation 
and classification of external appearances, of the causes of 
which we know nothing. 

Religionism and Scientism are continually subject to 
changes. They have been created by illusions, and die 
when the illusions are over. True Science and true Re- 
ligion are one, and if realized by Practice, they form 
with the truth which they contain, the three-lateral pyra- 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

mid, whose foundations are upon the earth, and whose 
point reaches into the kingdom of heaven. 

Mystic science in its true meaning is spiritual knowl- 
edge; that is to say, the soul knowledge of spiritual and 
"super-sensual" things, perceived by the spiritual powers 
of the soul. These powers are germinally contained in 
every human organization, but only few have developed 
them sufficiently to be of any practical use. 

Mysticism belongs to the vapoury speculations of the 
brain. It is a hankering after illusions, a desire to pry 
into divine mysteries which the material mind cannot 
comprehend, a craving to satisfy curiosity in regard to 
what an animal ought not to know. It is the realm of 
fancies, of dreams, the paradise of ghost-seers, and of 
spiritistic tomfooleries of all kinds. 

But which is the true religion and the true science? 
There is no doubt that a definite relationship exists be- 
tween Man and the cause that called humanity into exist- 
ence, and a true religion or a true science must be the one 
which teaches the true terms of that relation. If we take 
a superficial view of the various religious systems of the 
world, we find them all apparently contradicting each 
other. We find a great mass of apparent superstitions 
and absurdities heaped upon a grain of something that 
may be true. We admire the ethics and moral doctrines 
of our favourite religious system, and we take its theologi- 
cal rubbish in our bargain, forgetting that the ethics of 
nearly all religions are essentially the same, and that the 
rubbish which surrounds them is not real religion. It is 
evidently an absurdity to believe that any system could be 
true, unless it contained the truth. But it is equally evi- 
dent that a thing cannot be true and false at the same time. 
The truth can only be one. The truth never changes ; but 
we ourselves change and as we change so changes our as- 
pect of the truth. The various religious systems of the 
world cannot be unnatural products. They are all the 
natural outgrowth of man's spiritual evolution upon this 
globe, and they difTer only in so far as the conditions un- 
der which they came into existence differed at the time 
when they began to exist ; while his science has been arti- 
fically built, by facts collected from external observation. 



30 MAGIC. 

Each intellectual human being, except one blinded by pre- 
judice, recognizes the fact that each of the great religious 
systems of the world contains certain truths, which we in- 
tuitively know to be true; and as there can be only one 
fundamental truth, so all these religions are branches of 
the same tree, even if the forms in which the truth mani- 
fests itself are not alike. The sunshine is everywhere the 
same, only its intensity differs in different localities. In 
one place it induces the growth of palms, in another of 
mushrooms ; but there is only one Sun in our system. The 
processes going on on the physical plane have their analo- 
gies in the spiritual realm, for there is only one Nature, 
one Law. 

If one person quarrels with another about religious 
opinions, he cannot have the true religion, nor can he have 
any true knowledge; because true religion is the realiza- 
tion of truth. The only true religion is the religion of 
universal Love ; this love is the recognition of one's own 
divine universal self. Love is an element of divine Wis- 
dom, and there can be no wisdom without love. Each 
species of birds in the woods sings a different tune; but 
the principle which causes them to sing is the same in 
each. They do not quarrel with each other, because one 
can sing better than the rest. Moreover, religious dispu- 
tations, with their resulting animosities, are the most use- 
less things in the world ; for no one can combat the dark- 
ness by nghing it with a stick; the only way to remove 
darkness is to kindle a light, the only way to dispel spirit- 
ual ignorance is to let the light of knowledge that comes 
from the centre of love shine into every heart. 

All religions are based upon internal truth, all have an 
outside ornamentation which varies in character in the 
different systems, but all have the same foundation of 
truth, and if we compare the various systems with one 
another, looking below the surface of exterior forms, we 
find that this truth is in all religious systems one and the 
same. In all this truth has been hidden beneath a more or 
less allegorical language, impersonal and invisible powers 
have been personified and represented in images carved 
in stones or wood, and the formless and real has been pic- 
tured in illusive forms. These forms in letters, and pic- 



INTRODUCTION. 31 

tures, and images are the means by which truths may be 
brought to the attention of the unripe Mind. They are 
to the grown-up children of all nations what picture 
books are to small children who are not yet able to read, 
and it would be as unreasonable to deprive grown-up 
children of their images before they are able to read in 
their own hearts, as it would be to take away the picture 
books from little children and to ask them to read printed 
books, which they cannot yet understand. 

Very uninteresting and insignificant would be the sto- 
ries contained in the Bible, and in other religious books, 
if the personal events described therein were referring 
merely to certain occurrences having happened in the 
lives of certain individuals who lived some thousands of 
years ago, and whose biography can seriously interest no 
one to-day. What do we care now about the family 
affairs of a man called Adam or Abraham ? Why should 
we want to be interested in knowing how many legitimate 
or illegitimate children the Jewish Patriarchs had, and 
what became of them ? What is it to us whether or not a 
man by the name of Jonah was thrown into the water and 
swallowed by a whale? What happens to-day in the 
various countries of Europe is more interesting and im- 
portant for us to know than what happened at the court 
of Zerubbabel or Nabuchodonoser. 

But fortunately for the Bible and — if we only knew 
how to read it — fortunately for us, the stories contained 
therein are by no means merely histories of persons who 
lived in' ancient times, but they are allegories and myths 
having always a very deep meaning, of which our ex- 
pounders of the Bible, as well as its critics, usually know 
very little. 

The men and the women of the old and new "testa- 
ment" are much more than mere persons supposed to 
have existed at that time. They are personifications of 
eternally active spiritual forces, of which physical science 
does not even know that they exist; and their histories 
give an account of their action, their interrelations within 
the Macrocosm and its counterpart the Microcosm; they 
teach the history of the evolution of mankind in its spirit- 
ual aspect. 



32 MAGIC. 

If our natural philosophers would study the Bible and 
the ancient religious books of the East, in their esoteric 
and spiritual aspects, they might learn a great many 
things which they desire to know. They might learn to 
find out what are the true powers of the still sleeping 
"Inner Man," which are required to produce occult 
phenomena at will; they might find instruction how to 
transmute lead or iron into pure gold, and to transform 
animals into gods. 

But it is a truth, based upon natural laws, that man 
can see nothing except that which exists in his mind. If 
a man closes his eyes, he sees nothing, and if his mind is 
filled with illusions, he will have no room for the truth, 
and the deepest of symbols will be pictures without mean- 
ing to him. 

If our children — the big ones as well as the little ones — 
are only looking at the pictures without learning the text, 
they are apt to grow to believe the pictorial representa- 
tions to be the very things they are intended to represent ; 
they become accustomed to forget that forms are only 
illusions, and that formless realities cannot be seen. It 
is so much easier to believe than to think. Children 
should not linger over their picture-books so long as to 
neglect their higher education. Humanity has outgrown 
the infancy of its present cycle, and asks for more intel- 
lectual food ; the age of superstition is passing away, and 
the demand is not for opinions but for knowledge, and 
knowledge cannot be obtained without an effort. If we 
examine the various religious systems we may find a great 
deal of truth, but we cannot recognize it without knowl- 
edge, and real knowledge can only be obtained by practi- 
cal experience. The expressed opinion of one person 
can only give rise to conviction in another, if corroborated 
by the same or a similar experience of the latter. A per- 
son can only truly believe that which he knows himself, 
and he can only actually know himself that which he has 
experienced himself. 

There is a great difference between believing and 
understanding the truth. We may believe the truth with 
our heart and reject it with our brain. In other words : 
We may feel the truth intuitively, and not see it intellec- 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

tually. If our present generation would cultivate the 
faculty of knowing the truth by heart, and afterwards 
examine that which they know by means of their intellect, 
we would soon have a far better and happier state of 
society everywhere. But the great curse of our age is 
that the intellectual faculties reject the truth in the heart. 
The science of the brain suppresses the knowledge of the 
soul, and tries to grasp that which only the heart can 
touch. 

Men, instead of living in the sanctuary of the temples 
which they inhabit, are continually absent from there, 
and reside in the garret under the roof, looking out 
through the windows of the garret after scientific theories 
and other illusions of life. Day and night they stand 
there and watch, careful that none of the passing illusions 
may escape their observation, and while their attention is 
absorbed by these idle shows, the thieves enter the house 
and the sanctuary without being seen, and steal away the 
treasures. Then at the time when the house is destroyed 
and death appears, the soul returns to the heart and finds 
it empty and desolate, and all the illusions that occupied 
the brain during life fly away, and man is left poor in- 
deed, because he has not perceived the truth in his heart. 

The real object of a religious system should therefore 
be to teach a way by which a person may develop the 
power to perceive the truth himself, independent of 
anybody's opinion. To ask a man to believe in the 
opinion expressed by another, and to remain satisfied 
with such a belief, is to ask him to remain ignorant, 
and to trust to another person more than to his own 
experience. A person without knowledge can have no 
real ^ conviction, no true faith. His adoption of one 
particular theory or system depends on the circumstances 
under which he is born, or brought up, or surrounded. 
He is most liable to adopt that system which his parents 
or neighbors have inherited or adopted, and if he 
changes from one to another, he, generally speaking, 
does so from mere sentimentalism, or on account of 
some selfish consideration, expecting to obtain some 
benefit to himself by that change. From a spiritual 
standpoint he will gain nothing under such circum- 



34 MAGIC. 

stances; because to approach the truth, he must love 
the truth for its own sake, and not on account of the 
personal advantage that it may bring; from an in- 
tellectual standpoint he will gain little or nothing by 
exchanging one superstition for another. The only way 
by which Man can hope to arrive at the truth is to love 
the truth on account of its being the truth, and to free 
his mind from all prejudices and predilections, so that 
its light may penetrate into the mind. 

What is the religionism of to-day, but a religion of 
fear? Men do not wish to avoid vice, but they wish to 
avoid the punishment for having indulged in vice. Their 
experience teaches them that the laws of nature are 
unchangeable, but nevertheless they continue to act 
against the universal law. They claim to believe in a 
God who is unchangeable, and yet they implore his assist- 
ance if they desire to break his own law. When will 
they rise up to the true conception that the only pos- 
sible God is that universal power which acts in the law, 
which is itself the law of the spirit in nature, and can- 
not be changed? To break the law is identical with 
breaking the God within ourselves, and the only way to 
obtain forgiveness after he is broken is to restore the 
supremacy of the law, and to create a new God within 
ourselves. 

It may be well to study the opinions of others, and 
to store them up in the book of our memory, but we 
should not believe them to constitute self-knowledge. 
Even the teachings of the world's greatest Adepts, un- 
impeachable as they may be, can only instruct us, but 
give us no real knowledge. They can show the way, 
but we must take ourselves the steps on the ladder. 
Were we to recognise their dictum as the final aim, to 
be accepted without any further internal investigation, 
we should again fall back into a system of belief for the 
sake of authority. Knowledge gives strength, doubt 
paralyses the will. A man who does not believe that 
he is able to walk will not be able to walk as long as 
he does not believe; a man who knows by experience 
that he can command himseJf will be able to do so. He 
who can command himself can command that which is 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

below him, because the low is controlled by the high, 
and there is nothing higher than Man having obtained 
a perfect knowledge of Self. 

The knowledge of Self is identical with Self-knowledge, 
i. e., with one's own Soul knowledge independent of any 
dogmas or doctrines, no matter from what external 
authority they may proceed. If we study the teachings 
of any supposed authority external to our own selves, 
we at best know what the opinion of such an authority 
is in regard to the truth, but we do not necessarily 
arrive thereby at a self-knowledge of the truth. If we, 
for instance, learn what Christ taught about God, we 
are only informed of what he knew or believed to know 
but we cannot know God for all that, unless we awaken 
to a realisation of God's presence within our own heart. 
The knowledge of even the wisest of all men, if com- 
municated to us, will be to us nothing more than an 
opinion, as long as it is not experienced within our own 
selves. As long as we cannot penetrate within the soul 
of Man, we can know little more about him but his cor- 
poreal form; but how could we penetrate within the 
soul of another as long as we do not know our own? 
Therefore the beginning of all real knowledge is the 
knowledge of Self; the knowledge of the Soul and not 
the vagaries of the brain. 

Does external science confer any true knowledge of 
Man? The range of her power of observation is limited 
by the perceptive power of the physical senses, assisted 
by physical instruments; she has no means to investi- 
gate that which transcends physical sense, she cannot 
enter the temple of the unseen, she only knows the 
external form in which the reality dwells. She only 
knows what man appears to be, but not what he is, she 
knows nothing whatever of the essential and real man, 
and sometimes denies his existence. In vain shall we 
look to her for the solution of the problem, which 
thousands of years ago the Egyptian Sphinx pro- 
pounded. 

Do the popular religious systems confer any true 
knowledge of Man? The conception which the average 
theologian has of the mysterious being called Man is as 



36 MAGIC. 

narrow as that of the professor of modern science. He 
looks upon man as a personal being, isolated from other 
personal beings around whose infinite little personality 
centres the interests of the infinitely great. He forgets 
that the founders of the principal religious systems 
taught that the original and essential man was a universal 
power, that the real man is a whole and cannot be 
divided, and that the personal form of man is only the 
temporary temple in which the spirit dwells.* 

The misconceptions arising from ignorance of the 
true nature of Man are the cause that the popular 
religious opinions held by the average theologians in 
Christian and Pagan countries are based upon selfishness, 
contrary to the spirit of that which true religion teaches. 
"Christians" and "Heathens" clamour for some benefit 
to be conferred by some imaginary person upon that 
insignificant soap bubble, called the "personal self,'* 
either here or in the hereafter. Each one of such short- 
sighted nothings wants to be saved personally himself 
above all, the salvation of the rest is a matter of second 
consideration. They expect to obtain some benefit 
which they do not deserve, to wheedle themselves into 
the favour of some personal deity, argue their case 
before God, cheat the "devil" of his just dues, and 
smuggle their imperfections into the kingdom of heaven. 

The only reasonable object which any external re- 
ligious system can possibly have, is to elevate man from 
a lower state to a higher one, in which he can form a 
better conception of his true dignity as a member of the 
human family. If there is any possibility of imparting 
to a man a knowledge of his true self, the churches are 
the places where such a knowledge should be imparted; 
but to accomplish this the claims of the truth should 
predominate over those of the form, the interests of 
religion and the interests of the "church" would have to 
cease to be interchangeable terms, and the church should 
again be founded upon the rock of self-knowledge, 
instead of the craving to. obtain some selfish personal 
benefit in this world or in the problematical hereafter. 

He who is led by selfish considerations cannot enter a 

•Bible: Corinth, iii, 16. 



INTRODUCTION. 37 

heaven where personal considerations do not exist. He 
who does not care for heaven but is contented where he 
is, is already in heaven, while the discontented will in 
vain clamour for it. To be without personal desires is to 
be free and happy. "Heaven" can mean nothing else 
but a state in which freedom and happiness exist. The 
man who performs beneficial acts induced by a hope of 
reward is not happy unless the reward is obtained, and 
if his reward is obtained his happiness ends. There can 
be no permanent rest and happiness as long as there is 
some work to be done and not accomplished, and the 
fulfilment of duties brings its own rewatd. 

A man who performs a good act with the hope of 
reward is not free. He is a servant of Self, and works 
for the benefit of Self and not for his God. It is, 
therefore, not the power of God which will reward him, 
he can only expect that reward from his own temporary 
surroundings. 

The man who performs evil acts, induced by a selfish 
motive, is not free. He who desires evil and is re- 
strained by fear is not his own master. He who recog- 
nises the supreme power of the universe in his own 
heart has become free. He whose will is swayed by his 
personal self is the slave of his person, but he who has 
conquered that so-called "self" enters the higher life 
and becomes a power. 

The science of Life consists in subduing the low and 
elevating the high. Its first lesson is how to free oneself 
from the love of self, the first angel of evil, or, according 
to Edwin Arnold: 

"The sin of self, who In the universe 
As in a mirror sees her fond face shown, 
And crying 'I,' would have the world say 'I,' 
And all things perish so if she endure."* 

This lower Self is an unreal thing, composed of a 
great many illusive egos, of which each one has his 
peculiar claims, and whose demands grow in proportion 
as we attempt to satisfy them. They are the semi- 
intellectual forces of the soul that would rend the soul 
to pieces if they were allowed to grow, and which must 
be subdued by the power of the real Master, the superior 
"I"— the God. 

* Edw. Arnold: "Light of Asia." 



38 MAGIC. 

These '7V are the Elementals, of which has been 
said so much in occult literature. They are not imag- 
inary things, but living forces, and they may be per- 
ceived by him who has acquired the power to look 
within his own soul. Each of these forces corresponds 
to some animal desire, and if it is permitted to grow is 
symbolised by the form of the being which corresponds 
to its nature. At first they are thin and shadowy, 
but as the desire which corresponds to them is indulged 
in, they become more and more dense within the soul, 
and being nourished by the will, they gain great strength 
as our desires grow into a passion. The lesser Elementals 
are swallowed by the bigger ones, the little desires are 
absorbed by the stronger ones, until perhaps at last 
one Master Passion, one powerful Elemental remains. 
They form the dreaded Dwellers of the Threshold, who 
guard the garden of the paradise of the soul. They 
are described as having the form of snakes and tigers, 
hogs, insatiable wolves, &c, but as they are often the 
result of a mixture of human and animal elements, they 
do not merely exhibit purely animal forms; but fre- 
quently they look like animals with human heads or 
like men with animal members; they appear under end- 
less varieties of shapes, because there is an endless variety 
of correlations and mixtures of lust, avarice, greed, 
sensual love, ambition, cowardice, fear, terror, hate, 
pride, vanity, self-conceit, stupidity, voluptuousness, 
selfishness, jealousy, envy, arrogance, hypocrisy, cunning-, 
sophistry, imbecility, superstition, &c, &c. 

These Elementals live in the soul-realm of man as 
long as he lives, and grow strong and fat, for they 
live on his life-principle, and are fed by the substance of 
his thoughts. They may even become objective to him, 
if during a paroxysm of fear or in consequence of some 
disease they are enabled to step out of their sphere. 
They cannot be killed by pious ceremonies, nor be driven 
away by the exhortations of a clergyman; they are 
only destroyed by the power of the spiritual Will of 
the divine man, which annihilates them as the light 
annihilates darkness, or as a stroke of lightning seems 
to rend the clouds. 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

Only those who have awakened to divine spiritual 
consciousness can have that spiritual will, of which the 
non-regenerated knows nothing. But those who are not 
yet so far advanced may cause those elementals to die 
slowly, by withdrawing from them the food which they 
require, that is to say, by not desiring or enjoying 
their presence; by not giving to their existence the 
consent of the will. They will then begin to wane, to 
get sick, die and putrefy like a member of the body 
which has become mortified. A line of demarkation will 
be formed in the soul-body of man, there may be "inflam- 
mation" and suffering. A process, similar to that which 
occurs if a gangrenous part of the physical body is 
thrown off, takes place ; and at last the putrid carcass of 
the Elemental drops off and dissolves. 

These descriptions are neither fancies nor allegories. 
Theophrastus Paracelsus Jacob Bo chine, and many other 
writers on Occultism write about them, and a due appre- 
ciation of their doctrines will go far to explain many 
occurrences mentioned in the history of witchcraft, and 
in the legends of the lives of the saints. 

But there are not merely animal germs within the 
realm of the soul of man. In each human constitution 
there are also the germs which go to make up a 
Shakespeare, a Washington, Goethe, Voltaire, a Buddha, 
or Jesus of Nazareth. There are also the germs which 
may grow to make a Nero, Messalina, or Torquemada; 
and each germ has the latent power to develop, take a 
form and ultimately find its expression and reflection in 
the outward body, as much as the density of the material 
atoms, which are slow to transform, will permit; for 
each character corresponds to a form, and each form to 
a character. 

Man's microcosm is a garden in which all kinds of 
living plants grow. Some are poisonous, some are 
wholesome. It rests with man to decide which germs 
he wants to develop into a living tree, and that tree 
will be himself. 

To accomplish the task of becoming spiritual it is not 
necessary to be a misanthrope and retire into a jungle 
there to feed on the products of one's own morbid 



40 MAGIC. 

imagination; the struggle caused by the petty annoy- 
ances of everyday life is the best school to exercise the 
will power for those that have not yet gained the 
mastery over Self. "To renounce the vanities of the 
world" does not mean to look with contempt upon the 
progress of the world, to remain ignorant of mathematics 
and logic, to take no interest in the welfare of humanity, 
to avoid the duties of life or neglect one's family. Such 
a proceeding would accomplish the very reverse of what 
is intended ; it would- increase the love of self, it would 
cause ' the soul to shrink to a small focus instead of 
expanding it over the world. We must attain a state 
before we can outgrow it. A misanthrope cannot attain 
the love of God, if he does not first rise up to the love 
for mankind. "To renounce one's self" means to conquer 
the sense of personality and to free one's self of the love 
of things which that personality desires. It means to 
"live in the world, but not cling to the world," to 
substitute universal love for personal love, and to con- 
sider the interests of the whole of superior importance 
than personal claims. The renunciation of that self 
which is only a mask, is necessarily followed by spiritual 
growth. As- we forget our personal self, we attach less 
importance to personalities, personal things, and personal 
feelings. We begin to look upon ourselves not as being 
permanent, unchanging and unchangeable entities, stand- 
ing isolated among other isolated entities, and being 
separated from them by impenetrable shells, but as mani- 
festations of an infinite power, which embraces the 
universe, and whose powers are concentrated and brought 
to a focus in the bodies which we temporarily inhabit, 
into which bodies continually flow and from which are 
incessantly radiating the rays of an infinite sphere of 
light, whose circumference is endless and whose centre 
is everywhere. 

Upon the recognition and realisation of this truth rests 
the only true Law, the Religion of the Universal Love of 
God in all Beings, As long as man takes only his own 
little self into consideration in his thoughts and acts, 
the sphere of his mind becomes necessarily narrow. 
All our popular religious sects are based upon selfish 



INTRODUCTION. m 41 

considerations. Each of our religious sectarians specu- 
lates to obtain some spiritual, if not material, benefit 
for himself. Each one wants to be saved by somebody; 
first he, and then perhaps the others ; but, above all, he 
himself. The true religion of universal Love knows of 
no "self." 

Even the high and laudable desire to go to heaven or 
enter the state of Nirvana is, after all, but a selfish 
desire, and as long as man has any selfish desires what- 
ever, his mind perceives only his own self. Only when 
he ceases to have a limited illusive "self" will his real god 
become unlimited and be omnipresent, like the spirit of 
Wisdom. He who desires unlimited knowledge must 
rise above limitation. 

Looked at from that height, the personality appears 
exceedingly small and insignificant, and of little im- 
portance. Man appears as the centralisation of an idea, 
persons and peoples like living grains of sand on the 
shore of an infinite ocean. Fortune, fame, love, luxury, 
&c, assume the importance of soap-bubbles, and t]ie 
soul has no hesitation in relinquishing them as the idle 
playthings of children. Neither can such a renuncia- 
tion be called a sacrifice, for grown-up boys and girls 
do not "sacrifice" their popguns and dolls, they simply 
do not want them any longer. In proportion as their 
minds expand, do they reach out for something more 
useful, and as a man's soul expands, his surroundings, 
and even the planet on which he lives, appear to him 
small as a landscape seen from a great distance, or 
from a high mountain, while at the same time his 
conception of the infinite grows larger and assumes a 
gigantic form. This expansion of our existence "robs 
us of a country and a home"* by making us citizens of 
the grand universe; it separates us from the fancied 
affections for the impermanent forms of our mortal 
parents and friends, to unite us with their true in- 
dividualities for ever as our immortal brothers and sis- 
ters ; it lifts us up from the narrow confines of the 
illusory to the unlimited realm of the Ideal, and releas- 
ing man from the prison-house of insignificant clay, it 

* Bulwer-Lytton : "Zanoni," 



42 MAGIC. 

leads him to the sublime freedom and splendour of Eter- 
nal and Universal Life. 

Every form of life, the human form not excepted, is 
nothing more than a focus in which the energies of the 
universal principle of life are concentrated, and the 
more they are concentrated and cling to that centre, 
the less are they able to manifest their activity, to grow 
and expand. Self-satisfied man, who employs his ca- 
pacities only for his own selfish purpose, contracts them 
into himself, and as he contracts he becomes more and 
more narrow-minded and insignificant, and as he loses 
sight of the whole, the whole loses sight of him. If, on 
the other hand, a person lives only in dreams, sending 
his forces into the region of the unknown, scattering them 
through space, without having obtained intellectual 
strength, his thoughts will wander like shadows through 
the realm of the infinite and become lost. Neither the 
self-conceited realist nor the visionary dreamer requires 
expansion along with a corresponding accumulation of 
energy. 

Some persons are possessed of great intellectual 
power, but of little spirituality; some have spiritual 
power, but a weak intellect; those in whom the intel- 
lectual energies are well supported by a strong spirit 
are the elect. To become practical, we must first learn 
to understand the thing we want to practice, by obser- 
vation and receiving instruction. Understanding is a 
result of assimilation and growth, not a result of memory. 
The truth must nourish the soul. It is an awakening 
to a state of consciousness of the nature of the thing 
that comes to be a part of our own being. A person 
coming to a strange country in the evening will, when 
after a night's rest he awakes in the morning, hardly 
realise where he is. He has, perhaps, been dreaming of 
his home and those that are left there, and only after 
he opens his eyes and awakens to a full sense of con- 
sciousness of his new and strange surroundings, will 
the old impressions fade away, and he will begin to realise 
where he is. In the same manner old errors must dis- 
appear before new truths can be realised. Man only 



INTRODUCTION. 43 

begins to exist as conscious a spiritual being when he 
begins to experience spiritual life. 

To become spiritual, physical health, intellectual 
growth, and spiritual activity should go hand in hand. 
Intuition should be supported by an unselfish intellect, 
a pure mind by a healthy form. How to accomplish 
this can neither be taught by a science which deals 
only with illusory effects, nor by a religious belief based 
upon illusions; but it is taught by Theosophy, the 
Wisdom Religion of the ages, whose foundation is truth, 
and whose practical application is the highest object of 
human existence. 

This Wisdom Religion has been, and is to-day, the 
inheritance of the saints, prophets, and seers, and of 
the illuminated ones of all nations, no matter to what 
external system of religion they may have given their 
adherence. It was taught by the ancient Brahmins, 
Egyptians, and Jews in temples and caves, Gautama 
Buddha and Jesus of Nazareth preached it, it formed 
the basis of the Eleusinian and Bacchic mysteries of the 
Greeks, and the true religion of the eternal Christ is 
resting upon it. It is the religion of Humanity, that 
has nothing to do with opinions and forms. Now, as 
in times of old, its truths are misunderstood and misrep- 
resented by men who profess to be teachers of men. 
The Pharisees and Sadducees of the New Testament were 
the prototypes of modern churchmen and scientists 
existing to-day. Now, as then, the truth is daily 
crucified between superstition and selfishness and laid 
in the tomb of ignorance. Now, as then, the spirit has 
fled from the form, being driven away by those that 
worship the letter and ignore the spirit. Wisdom will for 
ever remain a secret science to the idolators adoring the 
form, even if it were proclaimed from the housetops and 
preached at a market-place. The dealer in pounds and 
pennies, absorbed by his material interests, may be sur- 
rounded by the greatest beauties of nature and not com- 
prehend them, the speculative reasoner will ask for a 
sign and not see the signs by which he is continually 
surrounded. The tomb from which the Saviour will 
arise is the heart of mankind; if the God in Humanity 



44 MAGIC. 

awakens to self-consciousness of his Divinity then will 
he appear as a sun, shedding its light upon a better and 
happier generation.* 

The existence of the magic power of good will probably 
be denied by few; but if the existence of benevolent or 
White Magic, is admitted, that of malevolent, or Black 
Magic, is not any more improbable. 

It is not man who exercises good or evil magic powers, 
but it is the spirit in him who works good or evil 
through the organism of man. God in his aspect as the 
great cause is good or evil according to the conditions 
under which he acts; for if God did not include evil as 
well as good, he would not be universal. God performs 
good or evil deeds according to the mode in which he 
must act; in the same way as the sun is good in spring- 
time when he melts the snow and assists the grass and 
flowers to crawl out of the dark earth, and evil, if he 
parches the skin of the wanderer in tropical Africa and 
kills persons by sun-stroke. God causes the healthy 
growth of a limb and the unhealthy growth of a cancer 
by the power of his unintelligent material nature which 
acts according to law and not according to whims. 
Divine wisdom does not become manifest in that which 
is not divine or spiritual. Consciousness cannot become 
revealed in an unconscious body. Only when the spirit 
in Man has awakened to consciousness and knowledge, 
will man be able to control his own spiritual power and 
employ it for good or for evil. 

A person having created (or called into consciousness) 
in himself a spiritual power may employ it for good or 
for evil. Every day we may read of persons who have 
used high intellectual powers for vile purposes. We 
see persons making use of the vanity, greediness, selfish- 
ness, or ambition of others to render them subservient 
to their own purpose. We see them commit murder 
and instigate wars for the benefit of their own purposes 
or to attain some object of their ambition. But such 
events belong more or less to the struggle for existence. 
They do not necessarily belong to the sphere of black 
magic because they are usually not caused by a love for 
absolute evil, but by a desire of a personal benefit of 

* See "Bhagavad Gita," cap xi. 



INTRODUCTION. 45 

some kind. The real black magicians are those that are 
doing evil for the sake of doing evil, who injure others 
without expecting or receiving any benefit for them- 
selves. To that class belong the habitual backbiter and 
slanderer, traducer and seducer, those who enjoy to 
create enmity in the bosom of families, oppose progress 
and encourage ignorance, and they have been rightly 
called the Sons of Darkness, while those who do good 
for the sole purpose of doing good have been called the 
Children of Light. 

The struggle between Light and Darkness is as old as 
the world; there can no light become manifest without 
Darkness and no evil without good. Good and evil are 
the light and shadow of the one eternal principle of life, 
and each is necessary if the other is to become manifest. 
Absolute good must exist, but we cannot know good 
without knowing the presence of evil. Absolute evil 
cannot exist, because it is held together by the power of 
good. A soul in which there were no good whatever 
would rage against itself, the forces constituting such 
an entity would combat each other and rend it to pieces. 
Man's Redeemer is his power for good. This power 
attracts him to that which is good, and at the end, when 
the supreme source of all power, from which life 
emanated in the beginning, withdraws that activity into 
itself, the powers of darkness will suffer, but the crea- 
tures of Light will be one with their own source. 

This is the law of evolution, that the lower should 
develop' into something higher ; but this can be accom- 
plished only by the power of the highest of all germin- 
ally contained within the form, and acted upon by itself 
from without. The soul requires nutriment as much as 
the physical form, and the nutriment of the soul descends 
from above like the rain ; while the earth below furnishes 
the conditions for its assimilation. This is the law of 
the spirit in the natural world, that all nature .should 
receive it and by a spiritual unfolding rise up to the 
spirit, while matter is to furnish the steps upon which to 
ascend. This unfolding and uprising takes place in 
proportion as the spirit of God becomes self-conscious in 
man, endowing him with a sense of its divine nature, 
which will ultimately lead him to a recognition of God. 



o 



CHAPTER I. 

THE IDEAL. 

"God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in 
spirit and in truth." — John iv. 24. 

HPHE highest desire any reasonable man can cherish 
* and the highest right he may possibly claim, is to 
become perfect. To know everything, to love all 
and be known and beloved by all, to possess and com- 
mand everything that exists, such is a condition of 
being that, to a certain extent, may be felt intuitively, 
but whose possibility cannot be grasped by the intellect 
of mortal man. A foretaste of such a blissful condi- 
tion may be experienced by a person who — even for a 
short period of time — is perfectly happy. He who is 
not oppressed by sorrow, not excited by selfish desires, 
and who is conscious of his own strength and liberty, 
may feel as if he were the master of worlds and the 
king of creation ; and, in fact, during such moments he 
is thoir ruler, as far as he himself is concerned, although 
his subjects may not seem to be aware of his existence. 
But when he awakes from his dream and looks 
through the windows of his senses into the exterior 
world, and begins to reason about his surroundings, his 
vision fades away; he beholds himself a child of the 
Earth, a mortal form, bound with many chains to a 
speck of dust in the Universe, on a ball of matter called 
a planet that floats in the infinity of space. The ideal 
world, that perhaps a moment before appeared to him 
as a glorious reality, may now seem to him the baseless 
fabric of a dream, in which there is nothing real, and 
physical existence, with all its imperfections, is now 
to him the only unquestionable realty, and its most dear 

46 



THE IDEAL. 47 

illusions the only things worthy of his attention. He 
sees himself surrounded by material forms, and he seeks 
to discover among these forms that which corresponds 
to his highest ideal. 

The highest desire of mortal is to attain fully that 
which exists in himself as his highest ideal. A person 
without an ideal is unthinkable. To be conscious is to 
realise the existence of some ideal, to relinquish the 
ideal world would be death. A person without any 
desire for some ideal would be useless in the economy 
of nature, a person having all his desires satisfied needs 
to live no longer, for life can be of no further use to 
him. Each one is bound to his own ideal; he whose 
ideal is mortal must die when his ideal dies, he whose 
ideal is immortal must become immortal himself to at- 
tain it. 

Each man's highest ideal should be his own higher 
spiritual self. Man's semi-animal self, which we see 
expressed in his physical form, is not the whole of man. 
Man may be regarded as an invisible power or ray 
extending from the (spiritual) Sun to the Earth. Only 
the lower end of that ray is visible, where it has evolved 
an organised material body; by means of which the 
invisible ray draws strength from the earth below. If 
all the life and thougljt-force evolved by the contact with 
matter are spent within the material plane, the higher 
spiritual self will gain nothing by it. Such a person re- 
sembles a plant developing nothing but its root. When 
death breaks the communication between the higher and 
lower, the lower self will perish, and the ray will remain 
what it was, before it evolved a mortal inhabitant of the 
material world. 

Man lives in two worlds, in his interior and in the 
exterior world. Each of these worlds exists under con- 
ditions peculiar to itself, and that world in which he 
lives is for the time being the most real to him. When 
he enters into his interior world during deep sleep or 
in moments of perfect abstraction, the forms perceived 
in the exterior world fade away; but when he awakes 
in the exterior world the impressions received in his 
interior state are forgotten, or leave only their uncertain 



48 MAGIC. 

shadows on the sky. To live simultaneously in both 
worlds is only possible to him who succeeds in harmo- 
niously blending his internal and external worlds into 
one. 

The so-called Real seldom corresponds with the Ideal, 
and often it happens that man, after many unsuccessful 
attempts to realise his ideals in the exterior world, 
returns to his interior world with disappointment, and 
resolves to give up his search; but if he succeeds in 
the realisation of his ideal, then arises for him a moment 
of happiness, during which time, as we know it, exists 
for him no more, the exterior world is then blended with 
his interior world, his consciousness is absorbed in the 
enjoyment of both, and yet he remains a man. 

Artists and poets may be familiar with such states. 
An inventor who sees his invention accepted, a soldier 
coming victorious out of the struggle for victory, a lover 
united with the object of his desire, forgets his own per- 
sonality and is lost in the contemplation of his ideal. 
The extatic saint, seeing the Redeemer before him, floats 
in an ocean of rapture, and his consciousness is centred 
in the ideal that he himself has created out of his own 
mind, but which is as real to him as if it were a living 
form of flesh. Shakespeare's Juliet finds her mortal 
ideal realised in Romeo's youthful form. United with 
him, she forgets the rush of time, night disappears, and 
she is not conscious of it; the lark heralds the dawn 
and she mistakes its song for the singing of the nightin- 
gale. Happiness measures no time and knows no danger. 
But Juliet's ideal is mortal and dies; having lost her 
ideal Juliet must die; but the immortal ideals of both 
become again one as they enter the immortal realm 
through the door of physical death. 

But as the sun rose too early for Juliet, so all 
evanescent ideals that have been realised in the ex- 
ternal world vanish soon. An ideal that has been 
realised ceases to be an ideal; the ethereal forms of 
the interior world, if grasped by the rude hand of mortals 
and embodied in matter, must die. To grasp an im- 
mortal ideal, man's mortal nature must die before he can 
grasp it. 



THE IDEAL. 49 

Low ideals may be killed, but their death calls similar 
ones into existence. From the blood of a vampire that 
has been slain a swarm of vampires arises. A selfish 
desire fulfilled makes room for similar desires, a gratified 
passion is chased away by other similar passions, a sen- 
sual craving that has been stilled gives rise to new crav- 
ings. Earthly happiness is short-lived and often dies 
in disgust; the love of the immortal alone is immortal. 
Material acquisitions perish, because forms are evanes- 
cent and die. Intellectual accomplishments vanish, for 
the products of the imagination, opinions, and theories, 
are subject to change. Desires and passions change and 
memories fade away. He who clings to old memories, 
clings to that which is dead. A child becomes a man, 
a man an old man, an old man a child; the playthings 
of childhood give way to intellectual playthings, but 
when the latter have served their purpose, they appear 
as useless as did the former, only spiritual realities are 
everlasting and true. In the ever-revolving kaleidoscope 
of nature the aspect of illusions continually changes its 
form. What is laughed at as a superstition by one cen- 
tury is often accepted as the basis of science for the 
next, and what appears as wisdom to-day may be looked 
upon as an absurdity in the great to-morrow. Nothing 
is permanent but the truth. 

But where can man find the truth? If he seeks deep 
enough in himself he will find it revealed, each man 
may know his own heart. He may let a ray of the 
light of intelligence into the depths of his soul and 
search its bottom, he will find it to be as infinitely deep 
as the sky above his head. He may find corals and 
pearls, or watch the monsters of the deep. If his thought 
is steady and unwavering, he may enter the innermost 
sanctuary of his own temple and see the goddess un- 
veiled. Not every one can penetrate into such depths, 
because the thought is easily led astray ; but the strong 
and persisting searcher will penetrate veil after veil, 
until at the innermost centre he discovers the germ of 
truth, which, awakened to self-consciousness, will grow 
in him into a sun that illuminates the whole of his 
interior world. 



50 MAGIC. 

Such an interior meditation and elevation of thought 
in the innermost centre of the soul, is the only true 
prayer. The adulation of an external form, whether 
living or dead, whether existing objectively or merely 
subjectively in the imagination, is useless, and serves 
only to deceive. It is very easy to attend to forms of 
external worship, but the true worship of the living 
God within requires a great effort of will and a power 
of thought, and is in fact the exercise of a spiritual 
power received from God. God in us prays to himself. 
Our business consists in continual guarding of the door 
of the sacred lodge, so that no illegitimate thoughts may 
enter the mind to disturb the holy assembly whose de- 
liberations are presided over by the spirit of wisdom. 

How shall we know the truth? It can be known 
only if it becomes revealed within the soul. Truth, 
having awakened to consciousness, knows that it is; 
it is the god-principle in man, which is infallible and 
cannot be misled by illusions. If the surface of the 
soul is not lashed by the storms of passion, if no selfish 
desires exist to disturb its tranquillity, if its waters are 
not darkened by reflections of the past, we will see the 
image of eternal truth mirrored in the deep. To know 
the truth in its fulness is to become alive and immortal, 
to lose the power of recognising the truth is to perish 
in death. The voice of truth in a person that has not 
yet awakened to spiritual life, is the "still small voice" 
that may be heard in the heart, listened to bythe soul, 
as a half-conscious dreamer listens to the ringing of 
bells in the distance,* but in those that have become 
conscious of life, having received the baptism of the 
first initiation administered by the spirit of God, the 
voice heard by the new-born ego has no uncertain 
sound, but becomes the powerful Word of the Master. 
The awakened truth is self-conscious and self-sufficient, 
it knows that it exists. It stands higher than all theories 
and creeds and higher than science, it does not need 
to be corroborated by "recognised authorities," it cares 
not for the opinion of others, and its decisions suffer 
no appeal. It knows neither doubt nor fear, but reposes 

* See H. P. Blavatsky: "The voice of the silence." 



THE IDEAL. 51 

in the tranquillity of its own supreme majesty. It can 
neither be altered nor changed, it always was and ever 
remains the same, whether mortal man perceives it or 
not. It may be compared to the light of the earthly 
sun, that cannot be excluded from the world, but from 
which man may exclude himself. We may blind our- 
selves to the perception of the truth, but the truth itself 
is not thereby changed. It illuminates the minds of 
those who have awakened to immortal life. A small 
room requires a little flame, a large room a great light 
for its illumination, but in either room the light shines 
equally clear in each; in the same manner the light of 
truth shines into the hearts of the illumined with equal 
clearness, but with a power differing according to their 
individual capacity. 

It would be perfectly useless to attempt to describe this 
interior illumination. Only that which exists relatively 
to ourselves has a real existence for us, that of which we 
know nothing does not exist for us. No real knowledge 
of the existence of light can be furnished to the blind, no 
experience of transcendental knowledge can be given to 
those whose capacity to know does not transcend the 
realm of external appearances. 

There is nothing higher than truth, and the acquisition 
of truth is therefore man's highest ideal. The highest 
ideal in the Universe must be a universal ideal. The 
constitution of all men is built according to one universal 
law, and the highest ideal must be the same to all and 
attainable to all, and in its attainment all individuals be- 
come reunited. As long as the soul of man does not rec- 
ognize the highest ideal in the Universe, the highest one 
which he is able to recognize will be the highest to him ; 
but as long as there still exists a higher one than the one 
he perceives, the higher will unconsciously attract him, 
unless he forcibly and persistingly repulses its attraction. 
Only the attainment of the highest ideal in the Universe 
can give eternal and permanent happiness, for having 
attained the highest there is nothing left that could possi- 
bly be desired. As long as there is still a higher ideal for 
man, he will have aspirations to reach it, but having 
reached the highest all attraction ceases, he becomes one 



52 MAGIC. 

with it and can desire nothing more. There must be a 
state of perfection which all may reach and beyond which 
none can advance, until the Universe as a whole advances 
beyond it. All men have the same right to reach the high- 
est, but not all have the same power developed, some may 
reach it soon, others may lag on the road, and perhaps 
the majority may fall and have to begin again at the foot 
of the ladder. Each ripe acorn that falls from an oak has 
the inherent capacity to develop into an oak ; but not each 
finds the same conditions for development. Some may 
grow, a few may develop into trees, but the majority 
will enter into decomposition to furnish material out of 
which new forms may be developed. 

The highest truth in its fulness is not known to man in 
the mortal form. Those that have attained to a state of 
perfect consciousness of infinite truth are not imprisoned 
in a limited form, they belong to a formless tribe; they 
could not be one with an universal principle if they were 
tied by the chains of personality ; a soul expanded, so that 
the prison-house of flesh can hold it no more, will require 
that prison-house no longer. Flesh and blood is only re- 
quired to shelter the spirit in the infancy of his develop- 
ment, as long as he has not attained full power. The 
"clothes of skin" * were needed to protect him against 
the destructive elementary influence of the sphere of evil 
as long as he could not rise above evil. Having attained 
the knowledge of evil and the power to subdue it, and 
having by the realisation of the truth "eaten from the 
tree of life and attained substantiality,"! he can protect 
himself by his own power, and requires his clothes of 
flesh no longer. 

Imperfectly developed man, unless he has become de- 
graded, feels intuitively that which is true, but does not 
know the truth by direct perception. The externalist 
who reasons only from the plane of sensual percep- 
tions is farthest from a recognition of the truth, be- 
cause he mistakes the illusions produced by his senses for 
the reality, and repulses the revelations of his own spirit. 
The philosopher, unable to see the truth, attempts to 
grasp it with his logic, and may approach it to a certain 

♦Bible: Genesis iii. 21. t Bible: Genesis iii. 22. 



THE IDEAL. 53 

extent; but he, in whom the truth has attained its own 
self-consciousness, knows the truth because he is himself 
one with it. Such a state is incomprehensible to the ma- 
jority of men, to scientists and philosophers as well as to 
the ignorant, and nevertheless men have existed, and 
exist to-day, who have attained it. They are the true 
Theosophos, but not everyone is 2, Theosopher who goes 
by the name of "Theosophist" nor is everyone a Christ 
who is called a Christian. But a true Theosopher and a 
true Christian are one and the same, because both are 
human forms in which the universal spiritual soul, the 
Christ or the light of Divine Wisdom, has become mani- 
fest. 

The terms "Christian" or "Theosophist," like so many 
other terms of a similar kind, have almost entirely lost 
their true meaning. A "Christian" now-a-days means a 
person whose name is inscribed in the register of some 
so-called Christian Church, and performs the ceremonies 
prescribed by that social organization; while a "Theoso- 
phist" is said to be a visionary or dreamer. 

But a real Christian is something entirely different from 
a merely external one. The first Christians were a secret 
organisation, a school of Occultists, who adopted certain 
symbols and signs, in which to represent spiritual truths, 
and thus to communicate them to each other. 

A real Theosophos is not a dreamer, but a most practi- 
cal person. By purity of life he acquires the power to 
perceive higher truths than average man is able to see, 
and he understands the things which he sees, because he 
possesses a spiritual knowledge gained by many a life of 
self-denial in repeated reincarnations. 

As fundamental truth the life of all things is only one, 
men in all countries, having attained self-consciousness in 
it, have the same perception. This explains why the 
revelations of the sages are identical with each other. 
The truths revealed by a Jackob Boehme, Eckhart, or 
Paracelsus in Germany, are essentially the same as those 
revealed by the Thibetan Adepts, they only differ in 
extent and in mode of expression. A true Christian saint 
in England or France would tell the same tale as a real 
Brahmin in India or a truly wise red Indian in America ; 



U MAGIC. 

because all three, being in the same state of clear percep- 
tion, would exactly see the same thing. The truth is there, 
visible to all who possess it, but each will describe what 
he sees according to his mode of thinking and in his own 
fashion. If — as the ignorant believe — all the visions of 
saints and lamas, sanyassi, and dervishes, were only the 
result of hallucinations and fancies, not two of them, 
having never heard of each other, would have the same 
vision. A tree will be a tree to all who are able to see it, 
and if their sight is clear no arguments will change it into 
an oyster ; a truth will be seen as a truth by all who are 
able to see it, and no sophistry will change it into a lie. 
To know the whole truth is to know everything that 
exists; to love the truth above all is to become united 
with everything; to be able to express the truth in its 
fulness is to possess universal power; to be one with 
immortal truth is to be for ever immortal. 

The capacity of perceiving the truth depends on the 
tranquility of the soul. The soul not being true cannot 
realise truth, it can at best dream of it as of something 
existing in another world. The sound of the voice of 
the truth cannot penetrate through the noise caused by 
the turmoil in the heart; its light cannot break through 
the clouds of false theories and the smoke of opinions 
which inhabit the brain. To understand that voice and 
to behold that light distinctly and without any foreign 
admixture, heart and head should be at rest. To per- 
ceive the truth, purity of heart and self-control should 
go hand in hand, and it is therefore taught that men 
must become as unsophisticated as children and strong 
as lions before they can enter the sphere of truth. 
Head and heart, if united, are One, but if they act 
against each other they form the absurd Two that 
produces illusions. The emotional maniac is only guided 
by his heart, the intellectual fool only listens to the dic- 
tates of his head, he lives in his head and knows not 
the heart. But neither the revelry of the emotions nor 
intellectual fanaticism discloses the truth; only in the 
"stillness that follows the storm,"* when the harmony 
of both is restored, can the truth be discovered. A man 

* "Light on the Path," by M. C. 



THE IDEAL. B'g 

who only follows the dictates of his emotions, resembles 
one who in ascending a mountain peak becomes dizzy, 
and losing his power to control himself, falls over a 
precipice; a man who is only guided by his sensual per- 
ceptions influencing his intellect is easily lost in the 
whirlpool of multifarious illusions. He is like a per- 
son on an island in the ocean examining a drop of water 
taken from the ocean, and being blind to the existence 
of the ocean from which that drop has been taken. 
But if heart and head are attuned to the divine har- 
monies of the invisible realm of nature, then will the 
truth reveal itself to man, and in him will the highest 
ideal see its own image reflected. 

We sometimes hear some people boast that they are 
controlled by their intellect, others are guided by their 
emotions; a free man is not controlled by either of the 
two; he is his own master guiding his heart and his 
mind. By the power of the god in him he controls the 
intellectual workings of his brain no less than the emo- 
tions of his heart. Heart and brain are not ourselves. 
They are instruments which have been lent to us by 
our Creator. They should not govern us ; but we should 
govern them, and use them according to the dictates 
of his wisdom. 

Material man, entombed in his chrysalis of clay, can 
only feel, but not see, the spiritual rays that radiate 
from the sun of infinite truth; but if he bids his emo- 
tions be still ! and commands his reasoning power be 
not deluded ! he may stretch his feelers into the realm 
of the spirit. In dealing with the unseen, his heart 
should be used as a touchstone to examine the con- 
clusions arrived at by the brain, and the brain should 
be employed like scales to weigh the decisions of the 
heart; but when the light of divine wisdom comes to 
his aid, there will be no more difference of opinion be- 
tween the head and the heart, the perceptions of the 
one will be in harmony with the aspirations of the latter, 
because both will be joined in the light. 

Man is usually guided principally by his intellect, 
woman by her emotions ; man represents intelligence, 
woman the will. To reason from external appearances 



56 MAGIC. 

has become a necessity to men in consequence of their 
material organisation, which like a shell surrounds their 
soul ; but if the innermost spiritual man, sleeping in 
every heart, awakens to life, he emits a light that pene- 
trates through the veil of matter and illuminates the 
mind. If this germ of divinity, hidden in the centre, 
awakens, it emits a spiritual light, which reaches from 
man to the stars and to the utmost limits of space, and 
by the help of that divine light the mind may perceive 
and penetrate into the deepest mysteries of the Universe. 
Those who are able to know the truth by direct per- 
ception do not need to be informed of it by others, the 
whole of the visible and invisible realm lies open before 
them, like a book in whose pages they may read the 
whole history of the world. They know all the mani- 
festations of life because they are one with the source 
of life from which all forms were born, they need not 
study letters, because the Word itself is living in them. 
They are the instruments through whom eternal wis- 
dom reveals itself to those who are entombed in matter. 
These are the true Saviours, Adepts, Illuminates, Rosi- 
crucians, Mahatmas, and Theosophoi; not those pretend- 
ers who merely fancy to be what they not really are. 

How pitiful must appear to the enlightened the war of 
opinions raging among those whom humanity believes 
to be the keepers of knowledge and wisdom; how insig- 
nificantly small appear those lights before the sun of 
divine truth. What appears as a light to the ignorant, 
appears to the illuminated seer as darkness and smoke, 
and the wisdom of the world becomes foolishness* before 
the eye of the truth. The oyster in its shell may believe 
itself at the pinnacle of perfection, and that there is no 
higher existence than that which it enjoys in the ocean- 
bed; the self-conceited, proud of his learning, is swelled 
with vanity, knowing little how little he knows. Many 
of the representatives of modern science forget that the 
greatest inventions have been made, not by the professed 
guardians of science, but by men with a clear perception, 
and upon whom they looked with contempt. They 
ought to remember, that many useful inventions were 

* 1 Cor. iii. 19. 



THE IDEAL. 57 

made and introduced, not with the assistance, but in 
spite of the opposition of the learned. It may be dis- 
agreeable to call up unpleasant memories, but we cannot 
close our eyes to the fact that the inventors of railroads, 
steamships, and telegraphs have been ridiculed by pro- 
fessors of science, that men of science have laughed at 
the belief in the rotundity of the earth, and that some 
of the appointed keepers of the truth have often been 
conspicuous on account of their misunderstanding of the 
laws of nature, and of their opposition to truth, when- 
ever it conflicted with their preconceived opinions. 

Many useful discoveries have been made through the 
power of intuition; some have been made by logical 
reasoners without intuition, and their results are still 
a curse to mankind. For centuries the learned pro- 
fessions have been thriving on human suffering, and 
many of their followers, mistaking the low for the high, 
have prostituted their knowledge. The fear of an illu- 
sory devil external to man has served to swell the mon- 
ey-bags of Brahmins and priests, while the real internal 
devils, residing in the passionate nature of man, were 
allowed to grow. For centuries many of the self-ap- 
pointed servants of the Supreme have only served the 
golden calf, residing in their animal nature, feeding 
their followers with false hopes of immortality, and 
speculating on the selfish propensities of men. Those 
to whom humanity looks for protection against bodily 
ills, and who therefore — more than anybody else — should 
understand the real constitution of man, still experiment 
with the physical form to seek the cause of disease, 
being ignorant of the fact that the form is an expres- 
sion of life, the product of the soul, and that external 
effects cannot be effectually changed without chang- 
ing the internal causes. Many of them refusing to be- 
lieve in Soul, seek the cause of diseases in its external 
expression, where it does not exist. Diseases are the 
necessary results of disobedience to the laws of nature, 
they are the consequences of "sins" that cannot be for- 
given, but must be atoned for by acting again in ac- 
cordance with natural laws. In vain will the ignorant 
ask the guardians of health for their assistance to cheat 



53 MAGIC. 

nature out of its dues. Physicians may restore health 
by restoring the supremacy of the law, but as long as 
they know only an infinitesimal part of the law they 
can only cure an infinitesimal part of the diseases afflict- 
ing mankind; they sometimes suppress the manifesta- 
tion of one disease by calling another and more serious 
one into existence. In vain will such investigators seek 
for the cause for epidemic diseases in places where such 
diseases may be propagated, but where they are not 
created. The soul of the world in which such causes 
reside cannot be seen with microscopes, it can only be 
recognized by a man capable of perceiving the truth. 

K true conception of the nature of man will lead to 
the comprehension of the fact that man, being as a 
microcosm the true image, reflection and representative 
of the macrocosm of nature; Nature has the same or- 
ganisation as Man, although not the same external form. 
Having the same organs and functions, and being ruled 
by the same laws, the organism of Nature is liable to 
experience diseases, similar to those experienced by the 
organism of man. Nature has her dropsical swellings, 
her nervous tremblings, her paralytic affections by 
which civilised countries turn into deserts, her inflamma- 
tory affections, her rheumatic contractions, spells of heat 
and cold, eruptions and earthquakes. If our physicians 
knew the nature of man, they would also know the or- 
ganisation of Nature as a whole, and understand more 
about the origin of epidemic diseases, of which they now 
know merely the external effects. 

What does modern medical science know of the con- 
stitution of man, whose life and safety is made to de- 
pend on that knowledge? It knows the form of the 
body, the arrangement of muscles, and bones, and or- 
gans, and it calls these constituent parts by names which 
it invented. Having no supersensual perceptions it does 
not know the soul of man, but believes that his body 
is the essential man. If its eyes were open it would 
see that this visible body is only the material kernal of 
the "immaterial," but nevertheless substantial real man, 
whose soul-essence radiates far into space, and whose 
spirit is without limits, and that the spirit is not merely 



THE IDEAL. 69 

within the body, but rather the body within the sphere 
of the spirit. They would know that in the life-principle 
resides sensation, perception, consciousness, and all the 
causes that produce the growth of the form. Labouring 
under their fatal mistake they attempt to cure that which 
is not sick, while the real patient is unknown to them. 
Under such circumstances it is not surprising that the 
most enlightened physicians of our time have expressed 
the opinion that our present system of medicine is rather 
a curse than a blessing to mankind, and that our drugs 
and medicines on the whole do vastly more harm than 
good, because they are continually misapplied. This is 
an assertion which has often been made by their own 
most prominent leaders. 

The ideal physician of the future is he who knows 
the true constitution of man, and who is not led by 
illusive external appearances, but able to examine into 
the hidden causes of all external effects. To him the 
acquisitions of external science are not the guides but 
only the assistants, his guide will be his own knowledge 
and not a theory, and his knowledge will endow him 
with power.* 

If our medical students were to apply a part of the 
time which they employ for amusements for the develop- 
ment of a love for the truth, they would become able 
to know certain processes within the organism of man, 
which are at present to them a mere matter of specu- 
lation, .and which are not discoverable by any physical 
means. 

But even the modern physician acts wiser than he 
knows. He may say that he does not believe in faith, 
and yet it is only faith that upholds him and by which 
he exists, because if men had no confidence in him they 
would«not employ him, and if his patients did not be- 
lieve that he could benefit them they would not fol- 
low his directions. A physician without spiritual knowl- 
edge, having no confidence in himself, and in whom 
no one else has any faith, is perfectly useless as a physi- 
cian, no matter how much he may have learned in schools. 

There is nothing whatever that can be accomplished 

* Such a physician was Theophrastus Paracelsus, the great reformer 
of medicine in the sixteenth century. 



60 MAGIC. 

without the power of Faith, and there is no faith pos- 
sible without spiritual knowledge. We can only accom- 
plish that of which we are confident that we can accom- 
plish it, and we can only be truly confident if we know 
by experience that we have the power to do it. 

What does popular science know about Mind? Ac- 
cording to the usual definition, Mind is "the intellectual 
power in man," and as "man" means a visible body, 
this definition makes of mind something confined within 
that visible form. But if this conception were true, 
there could be no transmission of will to a distance 
and no transmission of thought. No sound can be 
heard in a space from which the air has been exhausted, 
and no thought can travel from one individual to an- 
other without a corresponding "ether" existing between 
them; but the possibility of thought-transference is now 
an universally admitted fact; its truth has been per- 
ceived long ago by children who make practical use of 
it in some of their games, and it has now been admitted 
as a fact even by the most sceptical and superficial 
observers.* Moreover, any one who doubts its possi- 
bility has it in his power to convince himself by either 
impressing his thoughts silently upon others, or by let- 
ting others impress their thoughts upon him. 

How infinitely more grand and how much more 
reasonable is the conception of ancient philosophical 
science, according to whose doctrines everything that 
exists is an expression of the thoughts of the Universal 
Mind, pervading all space! This conception makes 
Mind a power in the realm of infinity, acting through 
living and intelligent instruments, and of Man, an in- 
tellectual power, an expression of the Universal Mind, 
able to receive, reflect, and modify the thoughts of the 
latter, like a diamond that becomes self-luminous through 
the influence of the Sun. 

There is no reason why we should delude ourselves 
with a belief that an intelligent mind can exist only in 
a form which is visible and tangible to the external 
senses of man. There may be, for all we know, untold 
millions of intelligent or semi-intelligent beings in the 

* "Report of the Society for Psychical Research." London, 1884. 



THE IDEAL. 61 

universe, whose forms are constituted differently from 
ours, living on another plane of existence than ours., and 
who are therefore invisible to our physical senses, but 
may be perceived by the superior power of perception 
of the inner man. Nor is their existence a matter of 
mere speculation, for they have been perceived by those 
who have the power of interior perception. 

All we know of external objects is the images which 
they produce in the sphere of our mind. Astral or 
spiritual beings produce no reflection upon the retina, 
but their presence may be known when they enter the 
mental sphere of the observer, and they may be per- 
ceived with the eye of the soul. 

The ideal scientist of the future having attained the 
power of inner perception, will recognise this truth. 

If we believe that the object of life is simply to render 
our material Self satisfied and to keep it in comfort, 
and that material comfort confers the highest state of 
possible happiness, we mistake the low for the high and 
an illusion for the truth. Our material mode of life is 
a consequence of the material constitution of our bodies. 
We are "worms of earth" because we cling with all our 
desires and aspirations to earth. If we can enter upon 
a path of evolution, by which we become less material 
and more ethereal, a very different order of civilisation 
would be established. Things which now appear indis- 
pensable and necessary would cease to be useful; if we 
could transfer our consciousness with the velocity of 
thought from, one part of the globe to another, the 
present mode of communication and transportation 
would be no longer required. The deeper we sink into 
matter, the more material means for comfort will be 
needed; but the essential inner man is not material — in 
the usual acceptation of this term — and independent of 
the restrictions of matter. 

What are the real necessities of life? The answer to 
this question depends entirely on what we imagine to be 
necessary. Railways, steamers, electric lights, &c, are 
now a necessity to us, and yet millions of people have 
lived long and happy knowing nothing about them. To 
one man a dozen of palaces may appear to be an in- 



68 MAGIC. 

dispensable necessity, to another a carriage, another a 
pipe, or a bottle of whisky. But all such necessities are 
only such as man himself has created. They make the 
state in which he now is agreeable to him, and tempt 
him to remain in that state and to desire for nothing 
higher. They may even hinder his development instead 
of advancing it. If we would rise into a higher state, in 
which we would no longer require such things, they 
would cease to be a necessity, and even become undesir- 
able and useless ; but it is the craving and the wasting 
of thought for the augmentation of the pleasures of the 
lower life which prevent man to enter the higher one. 

To raise the evanescent man to a state of perfec- 
tion enjoyed by the permanent ideal man is the great 
Arcanum, that cannot be learned in books. It is the 
great secret, that may be understood by a child, but 
will for ever be incomprehensible to him who, living 
entirely in the realm of his dreams, has no power to 
grasp it. The attainment of a higher consciousness 
is the Magnum opus, the great work, of which the 
Alchemists said that thousands of years may be required 
to perform it, but that it may also be accomplished in 
a moment, even by a women while engaged in spinning. 
They looked upon the human mind as being a great 
alembic, in which the contending forces of the emotions 
may be purified by the heat of holy aspirations and by 
a supreme love of truth. They gave instructions how 
the soul of mortal man may be sublimated and purified 
from earthly attractions, and its immortal parts be made 
living and free. The purified elements were made to 
ascend to the supreme source of law, and descended 
again in showers of snowy zvhiteness, visible to all, be- 
cause they rendered every act of life holy and pure. 
They taught how the base metals — meaning the animal 
energies in man — could be transformed into the pure 
gold of true spirituality, and how, by attaining spiritual 
knowledge and spiritual life, souls could have their 
youth and innocence restored and be rendered immortal. 

Their truths shared the fate of other truths; they 
were misunderstood and rejected by the ignorant, who 
continually clamour for truth and reject it when it is 



THE IDEAL. 63 

offered, and ridiculed by fools. Theology and Masonry 
have — each in its own manner — continued the teachings 
of the Alchemists, and fortunate is the Mason or the 
priest who spiritually understands that which he teaches. 
But of such true disciples there are only few. The 
systems in which the old truths have been embodied are 
still in existence, but the cold hands of Sophistry and 
Materialism have been laid upon the outward forms, 
and from the interior the spirit has fled. Doctors and 
clergymen see only the outward form, and not the 
hidden mystery that called these forms into existence. 
The key to the inner sanctuary has been lost by those 
that were entrusted with its keeping, and the true pass- 
word has not been rediscovered by the followers of 
Hiram Abiff. The riddle of the Egyptian Sphinx still 
waits for a solution, and will be revealed to none unless 
he becomes strong enough to discover it himself. 

But the true Word still lives. The light of truth still 
shines deep into the interior world of man, and sends its 
divine influence down into the valleys, and wherever 
the doors and windows are open to receive it, there will 
it dispel the darkness, rendering men and women con- 
scious of their own godlike attributes and guiding them 
on the road to perfection, until, when all their struggles 
have ceased and the law has been restored, they will 
find permanent happiness in the realisation of the highest 
universal ideal, their own divine self. 



Y 



CHAPTER II. 

THE REAL AND THE UNREAt. 
"Allah! Bi'-smiMlah!— God is One."— Koran. 

T^VERYWHERE in the broad expanse of the uni- 
verse we see an almost infinite variety of forms, 
belonging to different kingdoms and species, and 
exhibiting an endless variety of appearances. The 
substance of which those forms are composed may, for 
aught we know, consist essentially of the same prim- 
ordial material, forming the basis of their constitution, 
although the qualities of the various bodies differ from 
each other, and it is far more reasonable to suppose 
that this one primordial eternal essence exists and ap- 
pears in the course of evolution in various forms, than 
to believe that a number of different original substances 
have come into existence either by being created out 
of nothing or otherwise. What this primordial essence 
— this immaterial substance* — is we do not know, we 
only know of its manifestation in forms which we call 
things. Whatever finds expression in one form or an- 
other is called a thing, and a thing may change its form 
and the substance remain. Water may be frozen into 
solid ice, or be transformed by heat into invisible vapour; 
and vapour may be chemically decomposed into hydrogen 
and oxygen; yet, if the necessary conditions are given, 
the energies which previously formed water will form 
water again; the forms and attributes change, but the 
elements remain the same and combine again in certain 
proportions, regulated by the law of mutual attraction. 
As this hypothetical primordial substance or principle 
has no attributes which we can perceive with our senses, 
we do not know the real substance of a thing. We may 

* The A'kasa of the Brahmins or the Iliaster of Paracelsus, the 
Universal P 

64 



THE REAL AN© THE UNREAL. 65 

gradually deprive a thing of some of its attributes and 
change its form, and yet it remains that thing as long 
as its character remains, and even after we destroy 
its form and dissolve its materials the character of the 
thing still remains as an idea in the subjective world, 
where we cannot destroy it, and we may clothe the 
old idea with new attributes and reproduce it under 
a new form on the objective plane. A thing exists as 
long as its character exists, only when it changes its 
character it changes its essential nature. A material 
thing is only the symbol or the representation of an idea ; 
we may give it a name, but idea remains hidden behind 
the veil. If we could on the physical plane separate a 
single substance from its character, and endow it with 
another, then one body could be transformed into another, 
as, for instance, base metals be transformed into gold; 
but unless we change the character of a thing, a mere 
change of its form will only affect its external ap- 
pearance. 

By way of illustration, let us look at a stick. It is 
made of wood, but this is not essential; it might be 
made of something else and still be a stick. We do not 
perceive the stick itself, we only see its attributes, its 
extension and colour and density; we feel its weight 
and we hear its sound if we strike. Each of these 
attributes or all of them may be changed, and it will 
remain a stick for all that, as long as its character is 
not lost, because that which essentially constitutes its 
character is its purpose, an idea which has not a definite 
form. Let us endow that formless idea with a new 
purpose that will change its character, and we shall have 
transformed our ideal stick into anything we choose to 
make of it. 

We cannot change copper into gold on the physical 
plane, we cannot change a man into a physical child, 
but we may daily transform our desires, our aspirations, 
tastes, and our character, if we conceive of a new purpose 
of life. In doing this we make of man, even on the 
physical plane, a different being. 

Nobody ever saw a real man, we only perceive the 
qualities which he possesses. Man cannot see himself. 



66 MAGIC. 

He speaks of his body, his soul, his spirit; it is the 
combination of the three which constitutes the sum of 
his attributes ; the real Ego, in which his character rests, 
is something unknown, whose nature becomes conceiv- 
able to us only when we divine the purpose of its exist- 
ence. As an idea and for a purpose he enters the world 
of matter, evolutes a new personality, obtains new ex- 
perience and knowledge, passes through the pleasures 
and vicissitudes of life and through the valley of death, 
and enters again into that realm where in the course of 
ages his outward form will cease to exist, to appear again 
in such a form upon the scene when the hour for his 
reappearance strikes. His body and personality change 
his purpose, and therefore his Ego remains the same 
and yet not the same, because during life it acquires 
new attributes and changes its characteristics. 

A true appreciation and understanding of the essential 
nature of man will show that the repeated reincarnation 
of the human monad in successive personalities is a 
scientific necessity. How could it be possible for a man 
to develop into a state of perfection, if the time of his 
spiritual growth were restricted to the period of one 
short existence upon this globe? If he could go on and 
develop without having a physical body, then why should 
it have been necessary for him to take a physical body 
at all? It is unreasonable to suppose that the spiritual 
germ of a man begins its existence at the time of the 
birth of the physical body, or that the physical parents 
of the child could be the generators of the spiritual 
monad. If the spiritual monad existed before the body 
was born, and could develop without it, what would 
be the use of its entering any body at all? 

We see that a plant ceases to grow when its roots are 
torn from the soil, and when they are replaced into 
the soil the growth continues. Likewise the human soul, 
for the purpose of attaining self-knowledge, takes root 
in the physical organism of man, and developes a char- 
acter, but when death tears out the roots, the soul rests 
and ceases to grow, until it finds again a physical or- 
ganism to acquire new conditions for continued growth. 

What can this inner ego be, which lives through death 



THE REAL AND THE UNREAL. 67 

and changes during life, except a spiritual ray of Life, 
obtaining relative consciousness by coming in contact 
with matter? Is any man certain of his own existence? 
All the proof we have of our existence is in our own 
self-consciousness, in the feeling of the / Am, which is 
the realisation of our existence. Every other state of 
consciousness is subject to change. The consciousness of 
one moment differs from that of another, according to 
the changes which take place in the conditions which 
surround us, and according to the variety of our impres- 
sions. We are craving for change and death; to remain 
always the same would be torture. Old impressions die 
and are replaced with new ones, and we rejoice to see 
the old ones die, so that the new ones may step into 
their places. We do not make our impressions ourselves, 
but we receive them from the outside world. If it were 
possible that two or more persons could be born and 
educated under exactly the same conditions, having the 
same character and receiving always the same impres- 
sions, they would always have the same thoughts, the 
same feelings and desires, their consciousness would be 
identical, and they might be considered as forming col- 
lectively only one person. A person, having forgotten 
all the mental impressions he ever received, and receiv- 
ing no new ones, might exist for all ages, living in eternal 
imbecility, with no consciousness whatever except the 
consciousness of the / Am, and that consciousness could 
not cease to exist as long as his personality were capable 
to recognise its existence relatively to itself. -~*<;~- 

This would be the only condition in which a person 
could possibly exist, if he had gained no spiritual self- 
knowledge and if he were to cease to receive any impres- 
sions from the external world, and similar to this may 
be the state of such a person after the death of his body, 
if during life he has not attained any higher knowledge 
than that which refers to perishing things. Having no 
spiritual consciousness, he can have no spiritual percep- 
tions, he can bring with him into the spiritual world 
nothing except his own ignorance. 

His sensations leave him at death, and the images 
received in his mind during life will fade away; the 



6$ MAGIC. 

intellectual forces, which have been set into motion by 
his scientific pursuits will be exhausted and after that 
time the spirit of such a person, even if he has been 
during life the greatest scientist, speculator, and logician, 
will be nothing but an imbecile, living in darkness, 
and being drawn irresistibly towards reincarnation; to 
reimbody itself again under any circumstances whatever, 
to escape from nothingness into existence. 

Under whatever form life may exist, it is only rela- 
tive. A stone, a plant, an animal, a man or god, each 
has an existence for itself, and each exists only for 
the others, as long as the others are conscious of his 
existence. Man looks upon the existence below him as 
incomplete, and the incomplete beings below him know 
little about him. Man knows little about any superior 
beings, and yet there may be such, looking upon him 
with pity, as he would look upon an inferior animal, 
an ape that has not yet awakened to a realisation of its 
own nature. 

Those who are supposed to know, inform us that 
there is no being in the universe superior to the man 
having become conscious of his own divine and immortal 
nature; but that there are innumerable invisible beings 
who are either far superior or inferior to mortal man as 
we know him. In other words, the highest beings in 
the universe are such as have once been men; but the 
men and women of our present civilisation may have to 
progress through millions of ages before they attain that 
state of perfection which such beings possess. 

Existence is relative. There is something in me which 
causes me to live and to think.^ I may call it "I" or 
"God;" in either case it is intellectually incompre- 
hensible, and it has no existence for me of which I am 
conscious, as long as I do not realise the relation between 
this unknown something and my own nature. Never- 
theless it is ; for if it were nothing it could not cause me 
to live and to think. It is the source of my being, and 
therefore it is existence and my nature is its manifest- 
ation. In realising my own existence, existence becomes 
to me a reality; to realise the nature of divine being is 
to enter into that state. 



THE REAL AN® THE UNREAL. 69 

We are accustomed to look upon that which we per- 
ceive with our senses as real, and upon everything else 
as unreal, and yet our daily experience teaches us that 
our senses cannot be trusted if we wish to distinguish 
between the true and the false. We see the sun rise in 
the East see him travel along the sky during the day 
and disappear again in the West; but every child now- 
a-days knows that this apparent movement is only an 
illusion, caused by the turning of the earth. At night 
we see the "fixed" stars above our heads, they look 
insignificant compared with the wide expanse of the 
earth and the ocean, and yet we are told that they are 
blazing suns, in comparison with which our mother 
Earth is only a speck of dust. Nothing seems to us 
more quiet and tranquil than the solid rocks under our 
feet, and yet the earth whereon we live whirls with 
tremendous velocity through space; the mountains seem 
to be everlasting, but continents sink beneath the waters 
of the ocean and rise again above its surface. Below 
our feet moves, with ebbs and tides, the swelling bosom 
of our apparently solid mother the earth, above our 
heads seems to be nothing tangible, and yet we live on 
the very bottom of the airy ocean above us, and do 
not know the things that may perhaps live in its currents 
or upon its surface. K stream of light seems to descend 
from the sun to our planet, and yet darkness is said to 
exist between the atmosphere of the Earth and the sun, 
where.no meteoric matter exists to cause a reflection; 
while again we are surrounded by an ocean of light of a 
higher order, which appears to us to be darkness, because 
the nerves of our bodies have not yet been sufficiently 
developed to react under the influence of the Astral 
Light. The image reflected in the mirror seems a reality 
to the unreasoning mind, the voice of an echo may be 
mistaken for the voice of a man. We often dream 
when awake, and while believing to be awake we are 
asleep. 

"Consciousness" is a relative term. It is not scientific 
to say "we are asleep;" as long as we do not know 
who "we" are. We can only truly say that such and 
such functions of a physical or psychical organism, 



%0. MAGIC. 

which are called our own., are asleep or inactive while 
others are active and awake. We may be fully awake 
relatively to one thing and asleep relatively to another. 
A somnambule's body is in a state resembling death, 
while his higher consciousness is fully alive and employs 
even far superior powers of perception than if all the 
activity of his life-principle were engaged in performing 
the functions of his lower organism. 

"Matter" and "Motion" are relative terms; both re- 
ferring to manifestations of something we do not know, 
and which we may call "Spirit." There is no motion 
without matter, no matter without some motion, and 
every power is therefore substantial. A solid mass 
of matter is condensed energy, representing a certain 
amount of latent power; every force is invisible sub- 
stance in motion. 

"Space" "extension" "duration" are relative. Their 
qualities change according to our standard of measure- 
ment and according to our mode of perception. To an 
animalculae in a drop of water that drop may appear as 
an ocean, and to an insect living on a leaf that leaf may 
constitute a world. If during our sleep the whole of the 
visible world were to shrink to the size of a walnut or 
expand to a thousandfold its present dimensions, on 
awakening we should perceive no change, provided that 
change had equally affected everything, including our- 
selves. A child has no conception of its relation to 
space and tries to grasp the moon with its hands, and 
a person who has been born blind and is afterwards 
made to see, cannot judge of distances correctly. Our 
thoughts know of no intervening space when they travel 
from one part of the globe to another. Our conceptions 
of our relation to space are based upon experience and 
memory acquired in our present condition. If we were 
moving among entirely different conditions, our experi- 
ences, and consequently our conceptions, would be en- 
tirely different. Space relatively to form can only have 
three dimensions, because all forms are composed of three 
dimensions : length, thickness, and height. 

Consciousness in the Absolute is unconsciousness rela- 
tively to everything. A. consciousness being in relation 



THE REAL AN© THE UNREAL., 73] 

with nothing is inconceivable. A consciousness existing 
in relation to its own self is self-consciousness. 

The Absolute is independent of its manifestations; 
but all manifestations depend on the presence of that 
which becomes manifest. God can exist in his own 
divine nature without revealing his presence to his 
creatures; but his creatures cannot exist without God. 
We know that space exists; but it is inconceivable to 
us as long as it does not become revealed to us in a 
form. Forms are objectified space. Without such a 
manifestation of three dimensional bodies we can form no 
conception of space. We know that God exists; but 
we cannot conceive of his existence unless his nature 
becomes revealed to us in its triunity within ourselves. 

The dimensions of space exist in our own mind. We 
conceive of no dimensions of space in a mathematical 
point, and self-consciousness exists in itself without any 
relation to anything except its own self. This might 
therefore be called a one-dimensional space. As to two- 
dimensional space, every one knows that there is a dif- 
ference between good and evil, between love and hate, 
&c, and the realisation of such a difference furnishes 
us with a conception of space in which we perceive only 
two dimensions. Three-dimensional space is the world 
of corporeal bodies ; but there is also a fourth dimension 
of space, known only to the enlightened, who have learned 
how to square the circle, because four is the number of 
truth, and three the number of form. 

As our conception of space is only relative, so is our 
conception of time. It is not time itself, but its measure- 
ment, of which we are conscious, and time is nothing 
to us unless in connection with our association of ideas. 
The human mind can only receive a small number of im- 
pressions per second; if we were to receive only one 
impression per hour, our life would seem exceedingly 
short, and if we were able to receive, for instance, the 
impression of each single undulation of a yellow ray 
of light, whose vibrations number 509 billions per second, 
a single day in our life would appear to be an eternity 
without end.* To a prisoner in a dungeon, who has no 

♦ Carl du Prel: "Die Planetenbewohner/' 



73 MAGIC. 

occupation, time may seem extremely long, while for him 
who is actively engaged it passes quickly. During sleep 
we have no conception of time, but a sleepless night 
passed in suffering seems very long. During a few 
seconds of time we may, in a dream, pass through ex- 
periences which would require a number of years in the 
regular course of events, while in the unconscious state 
time has no existence for us.f 

Persons fully in the subjective world receive no im- 
pressions from the objective world. If they are only 
partially in that state which occurs in dreams and in- 
sanity, the sensations carried to the half -conscious brain 
become mixed with the ideas born in the subjective 
world, and produce caricatures and distortion of images. 
In this state, when the experiences of the internal state 
mingles with the sensations of the external conscious- 
ness, the most erroneous impressions may be produced; 
because the intellect labours, but reason does not act 
sufficiently powerful to enable man to discriminate be- 
tween the true and the false. 

But what is the difference between objective and 
subjective states of existence? We do not cease to live 
while we are asleep, but we have a different kind of 
perceptions in either state. The popular idea is that 
sensual objective perceptions are real and subjective 
ones only the products of our imagination. But a little 
reflection will show that all perceptions, the objective as 
well as the subjective ones, are results of our "imagin- 
tion." If we look at a tree, the tree does not come 
into our eye, but its picture appears in our mind; if we 
look at a form we perceive an impression made in our 
mind by the image of an object existing beyond the 

f In b»oks on mystical subjects we find often accounts of a person 
having dreamed in a short moment of time, things which we should 
suppose that it would take hours to dream them; for instance the 
following: "A traveller arrived late at night at a station. He was 
very fatigued, and as the conductor opened the door of the car, he 
entered, and immediately fell asleep. He dreamed that he was at 
home, and living with his family; that he fell in love with a girl and 
married her; that he had lived happy until he meddled with political 
affairs, and was arrested on the charge of having entered into a con- 
spiracy against the government. He was tried, and condemned to be 
shot, and led out to be executed. Arrived at the place of execution, 
the command was given, and the soldiers fired at him, and he awoke 
at the noise caused by the shutting of the door of the car, which the 
conductor had shut behind him when our friend entered. It seems 
probable that the noise produced by shutting that door caused the whole 
dream," 



THE REAL AN© THE UNREAL. 73 

limits of our body; if we look at a subjective image of 
our own creation, we perceive the impression which it 
produces on our mind. In either case the pictures exist 
objectively in our mind, and we perceive the impressions. 

The fact is., that everything appears either objective 
or subjective according to the state of consciousness of 
the perceiver, and what may be to him entirely subjective 
in one state may appear to him objective in another. 
The highest ideal truths have to him who can realise them 
an objective existence, the grossest material forms have 
no existence to him who cannot perceive them. 

But here the great question arises: "Who or what is 
this unknown One that perceives the images existing in 
its own mind, and the sensations that come to his 
consciousness? What is that which you call your "L" 
which knows that you know, and which also recognises 
your ignorance? What is that Self, which is neither 
the body nor the mind, but which uses these things as 
its instruments? If you know that invisible being, you 
may throw away this book; it can teach you nothing 
new, because you know God and are the wisest of men. 

The basis upon which all exhibition of magical power 
rests is a knowledge of the relations that exist between 
objective and subjective states of existence, and the 
source from which they originate. If we conceive in 
our mind of the picture of a thing we have seen before, 
an objective form of that thing comes into existence 
within ,our own mind, and is composed of the substance 
of our own mind. If by continual practice we gain 
sufficient power to hold on to that image and to prevent 
it from being driven away and dispersed by other 
thoughts, it will become comparatively dense, and can 
be projected upon the mental sphere of others, so that 
they may actually see objectively that which exists 
subjectively as an image within our own mind; but he 
who cannot hold on to a thought and control it at will 
cannot impress it upon the minds of others, and there- 
fore such experiments fail, not on account of any ab- 
solute impossibility to perform them, but on account of 
the weakness of those who experiment, but have not 



71 ' MAGIC. 

the power to control their own thoughts, and to render 
them corporeal enough for transmission. 

Everything is either a reality or a delusion, according 
to the standpoint from which we view it. The words 
"real" and "unreal" are only relative terms, and what 
may seem real in one state of existence appears unreal 
in another. Money, love, power, &c, appear very real 
to those who need them; to those who have outgrown 
the necessity for their possession they are only illusions. 
That which we realise is real to us, however unreal it 
may be to another. If my imagination is powerful 
enough to represent to me the presence of an angel, that 
angel will be there, alive and real, my own creation, no 
matter how invisible and unreal he may be to another. 
If your mind can create for you a paradise in a wilder- 
ness, that paradise will have for you an objective ex- 
istence. Everything that exists, exists in the universal 
Mind, and if the individual mind becomes conscious of 
his relation to a thing therein, it begins to perceive it. 
No man can realise a thing beyond his experience, he can- 
not know anything to which he stands in no relation. 
For the purpose of perceiving, three facts are necessary : 
The perception, the perceiver, and the thing that is the 
object of perception. If they exist on entirely different 
planes, and cannot enter into relationship, no perception 
will be possible. If I wish to look at my face, and am 
not able to step out of myself, I must use a mirror to 
establish a relation between myself and the object of 
my perception. The mirror has no sensation, and I 
cannot see myself in the mirror, I can only see myself 
in my mind. The reflection of the mirror produces 
a reflection which is objective to my mind, and which 
comes to my perception. 

A consideration of this will give us the key to an 
understanding of man's original nature, and of the 
necessity of his "fall from grace." We cannot objec- 
tively see the light or the truth, as long as we are 
within the body of the one or the other. Only when 
we go beyond the sphere of the light, we can see its 
luminosity, only when we fall into error, will we learn 
to appreciate the truth. As long as primordial man was 



THE REAL AND THE UNREAL. 75 

one with the universal power from which he emanated 
as a spiritual ray or entity in the beginning, he could 
not know the divine source from which he came. The 
will and imagination of the Universal Mind were his 
own will and imagination. Only when he began to "step 
out of his divine self," could he begin to exist as an 
individual "Self;" only when he began to act against 
the law, did he begin to realise that there was a law. 
Man's apparently separated existence from God is an 
illusion; but this illusion must be experienced by him, 
so as to enable him to outgrow it, and to realise his unity 
with God. A god who does not realise his own divine 
nature would not be able to enjoy it. When man, as a 
spiritual entity, having attained perfection, enters again 
into his source, his sense of self and separateness will 
be lost, but he will be in possession of knowledge. To 
see a thing, it must become objective. To know what 
love is, we must be separated from the object of our love. 
When we fully comprehend a thing, we become one with 
it and know it by knowing ourselves. 

This example is intended to illustrate the fundamental 
law of creation. The first great cause — so to say — 
stepping out of itself, becomes its own mirror, and 
thereby establishes a relation with itself. "God" sees 
his face reflected in Nature; the Universal Mind sees 
itself reflected in the individual mind of man. God 
comes to relative consciousness in his own nature, but 
when he again retires into himself the relation will cease, 
he will again become one with himself, there will be 
no more relative consciousness, and "Brahma will go 
to sleep" until the new day of creation begins. But 
man knows that he exists even after all his relation with 
external things has ceased, he does not need to look 
continually into a mirror to be reminded of that fact. 
Likewise the absolute self-consciousness of the great I Am 
is independent of the objective existence of Nature, and 
he will still "sit on the great white throne after the earth 
and the heaven fled away from his face;"* which means 
that he will rest in his own divine self-consciousness. 

The superior powers of inner perceptions are those 

* St. John: Revelations, xx. 2. 



76 MAGIC. 

possessed by the inner man, and they become developed 
after the inner man awakens to self-consciousness. They 
correspond to the senses of the external man, such as 
seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling. 

External sensual perceptions are necessary to see sen- 
sual things; the internal sensual perceptions are neces- 
sary to see internal things. Physical matter is as in- 
visible to the spiritual sight as astral bodies are to the 
physical eyes; but as every object in nature has its astral 
counterpart within the physical form, it may see. hear, 
feel, taste, and smell with its astral senses those astral 
objects, and thereby know the attributes of the physical 
objects as well or still better than the physical man might 
have been able to do with his physical senses ; but neither 
the physical nor the astral senses will be able to per- 
ceive, unless they are permeated by the power of the 
spirit which endows them with life. 

Men usually look upon a thing as real if it is seen 
alike by several persons, while if only one person pro- 
fesses to see it, it being invisible to others, it is called 
illusive; but each impression produces a certain state 
of the mind, and a person perceiving it must be in a 
condition to enter into a relation with that state which 
the impression produces. All persons being in the 
same state of mind, and receiving the same impression, 
will perceive the same thing, but if their states of mind 
differ, their perceptions will differ. A horse or a lion 
may be seen alike by everyone who has his normal 
senses developed; but if one is excited by fear, his 
perception will differ from that of others, because the 
product of his own imagination distorts the impression 
received. A drunkard in a state of delirium tremens 
believes to see worms and snakes crawling over his body. 
His experience tells him that they have no external 
existence. Nevertheless they are realities to him. They 
really exist for him as the products of his own mental 
condition, but they do not exist for others who do not 
share that condition. But if others were to enter the 
same state they would see the same things. 

Our perceptions therefore differ — not only in pro- 
portion as the impressions coming from the objects of 



THE REAL AND THE UNREAL. 77 

our perception differ — but also according to our capacity 
to receive such impressions, or according to our own 
mental states. If we could develop a new sense of per- 
ception, we would be in a new world. If our capacity 
to receive impressions were restricted to only one sense, 
we would only be able to conceive of that which could 
become manifest to us through that sense. Let us sup- 
pose the existence of a being who could enter into only 
one state of consciousness ; for instance, that of hate. 
Having all his consciousness concentrated into one guid- 
ing passion, he could become aware of nothing else but 
of hate. Such a "god of hate," incapable of entering 
into any other mental state, could perceive no other states 
but those corresponding with his own. To such a be- 
ing the whole world would be dark and void, our oceans 
and mountains, our forests and rivers would have no 
existence for him; but wherever a man or an animal 
would burn with hate, there would be perhaps a lurid 
glow perceivable by him through the darkness, which 
would attract his attention and attract him, and on his 
approach that glow would burst into a flame in which the 
individual from whom it proceeded may be consumed. 
Any other mental state or passion may serve for a 
similar illustration. Hate knows hate, and Love knows 
love, and a person full of hate is as incaoable to love as 
a being full of love is incapable to hate. 

The Bhagavad Gita says : "Those that are born under 
an evil' destiny" (having acquired evil tendencies by 
their conduct in former lives) "know not what it is to 
proceed in virtue or to recede from vice; nor is purity, 
veracity, or the practice of morality, to be found in 
them. They say the world is without beginning and 
without end, and without an Ishwar, that all things are 
conceived in the junction of the senses, and that attrac- 
tion is the only cause."* 

Those who believe that everything exists in conse- 
quence of the unconscious attraction of two principles, 
forget that there could be no attraction if there were 
not some continually acting cause that produces that 
attraction. They are the deluded followers of a doctrine 

* Bhagavad Gita, L. xvi. 



781 MAGIC. 

which they themselves cannot seriously believe. They 
agree that out of nothing nothing can come, and yet 
they believe that unconscious attraction can produce con- 
sciousness. They are the followers of the absurd Two 
which has no real existence, because the eternal One 
divided into two parts would not become two Ones but 
the two halves of a divided One. One is the number 
of Unity, and Two is Division; the One divided into 
two ceases to exist as a One, and nothing new is thereby 
produced. If the plan for the construction of the world 
had been made according to the ideas of the followers 
of Dualism, nothing could have come into existence, 
because action and reaction would have been of equal 
power, annihilating each other. Neither could there be 
any progression under such circumstances at present. 

But behind all manifestations of power there is the 
eternal power itself, the source of all perfection that 
can become manifest. This is the Unity and Reality, 
in which no division exists ; from which all things orig- 
inate and to which all will return. In its aspect as being 
the source of perfection in everything and which all 
things desire to attain, it has been called "good." 

Whatever this power of good may be, it is beyond the 
capacity of man to give it an appropriate name, or to 
describe it, because it is beyond the comprehension of 
mortal man. To give a name to that which includes 
everything, is to limit the whole to one of its parts. It 
has been called "God" and as such it has "many faces," 
because its aspect differs according to the standpoint 
from which we behold it. It is the Supreme cause, from 
which everything comes into existence; it must be ab- 
solute consciousness, wisdom and power, love, intelligence, 
and life, because these attributes exist in its manifesta- 
tions and could not have come into existence without it. 

It is necessarily one and unlimited, and can therefore 
not be known to the limited intellect of man. It can 
only be known by itself; but if it reveals itself in our 
soul, our soul will partake of its knowledge. Therefore 
Angelus Silesius says — 

"God dwelleth in a light far out of human ken, 
Become thyself that light, and thou shalt see him then." 



THE REAL AN© THE UNREAL. 79 

When Gautama Buddha was asked to describe the su- 
preme source of all beings, he remained silent, because 
those who have reached a state in which they can realise 
what it is, have no words to describe it* and those who 
cannot realise it would not be able to comprehend the 
description. To describe a thing we must invest it 
with comprehensible attributes, and it then ceases to 
be unlimited and becomes limited. Therefore all theo- 
logical discussions about the nature of "God" are use- 
less, because "God" is the All and does not differ from 
anything ; but not everything is God ; because not every- 
thing is conscious of its own divine nature. To be- 
come conscious of one's own divine nature, is to realise 
the presence of God. To deny the existence of God is 
an absurdity equivalent to denying one's own existence, 
while existence is its own proof. He can only be spirit- 
ually known, but not scientifically described, and the fight 
between so-called Deists and Atheists is a mere quarrel 
about words which have no definite meaning. Every 
man is himself a manifestation of God, and as each 
man's character differs from that of every other, so 
each man's idea of God differs from that of the rest, and 
each one has a God (an ideal) of his own: only when 
they all have the same aspirations, will they all have 
the same God. 

To him who has not the power of God, the power of 
God does not exist. To him who perceives the presence 
of God, ,God exists, and to him his existence cannot be 
disputed away. The ignorant cannot be made to realise 
the existence of knowledge unless he becomes knowing; 
those who know cannot have their knowledge reasoned 
away. The caricatures of gods set up by the various 
churches as representations of the only true God are 
merely attempts to describe that which cannot be 
described. As every man has a highest ideal (a god) of 
his own, which is a symbol of his aspirations, so every 
church has its peculiar god, who is an outgrowth or a 
product of evolution of the ideal necessities of that col- 
lective body called a church. They are all true gods to 
them, because they temporarily answer their needs, and 

* 2 Corinth, xii, 4. 



SO MAGIC. 

as the requirements of the church change, so change their 
gods ; old gods are discarded and new ones put into their 
places. The god of the Christian differs from that of the 
Jews, and the Christian god of the nineteenth century is 
very different from the one that lived at the time o£ 
Torquemada and Peter Arbues, and was pleased with 
torture and Autos da Fe. As long as men are imperfect 
their gods will be imperfect; as they become more per- 
fect their gods will grow in perfection, and when all. 
men are equally perfect they will all have the same 
perfect "God," the same highest spiritual ideal recog- 
nised alike by science and by religion as being divinity 
in humanity; because there can be only one supreme 
ideal, one absolute Truth, whose realisation is Wisdom, 
whose manifestation is power expressed in Nature, and 
whose most perfect expression is ideal Man. 

There are seven steps on the ladder, representing the 
religious development of mankind: On the first stage 
man resembles an animal, conscious only of his instincts 
and bodily desires, without any conception of the divine 
element. On the second he begins to have a presenti- 
ment of the existence of something higher. On the 
third he begins to seek for that higher element, but his 
lower elements are still preponderating over the higher 
aspirations. On the fourth his lower and higher desires 
are counterbalancing each other. At times he seeks for 
the higher, at other times he is again attracted to the 
lower. On the fifth he anxiously seeks for the divine, 
but seeking it in the external he cannot find it. He 
then begins to seek for it within himself. On the sixth 
he finds the divine element within himself and developes 
spiritual self-consciousness, which on the seventh grows 
into self-knowledge. Having arrived at the sixth, his 
spiritual senses begin to become alive and active, and he 
will then be able to recognise the presence of other 
spiritual entities, existing on the same plane. On the 
seventh he finds that he himself is the God which he 
has been seeking. His will is free from every selfish 
desire, his thought is one with his will, his word becomes 
a creative act. Such a spiritual being may still dwell 
in a human body upon this planet, and not even be 



THE REAL AND THE UNREAL. 81 

recognised as something superior to the rest of mankind ; 
for his personality is not God. He lives, and yet he 
lives not; for it is God, his divine Self, the eternal 
Reality living in him. 




CHAPTER III 

FORM. 
"The Universe is a thought of God."!— Paracelsus. 

A CCORDING to Plato the primordial essence is an 
-**• emanation of the Demiurgic Mind, which contains 
from eternity the idea of the natural world within itself, 
and which idea is thrown into objectivity by the power 
of the divine self-conscious will. This doctrine seems 
to be almost as old as the existence of reasoning man on 
this globe. It contains essentially the same truth which 
has been taught by the ancient Rishis, and has been 
expressed by the deepest thinkers of all ages, apparently 
from the first planetary spirit, that made his appearance 
on this earth, down to the modern philosophers who 
teach that the world is a product of ideation and will.* 
The great Christian Mystic, Jacob Boehme describes 
the Great First Cause as a trinity of will, intelligence 
and action. His doctrine corresponds to that which is 
taught in the East, regarding the three emanations of 
Brahm, and of which that German shoemaker could at 
that time hardly have known anything, if he had not 
been an Illuminate, He says in his book on "The Three 
Principles/' that by the activity of the Will-Fire at the 
Centre the eternal consciousness of the latter was re- 
flected in Space as in a mirror, and from this activity 
Light and Life were born. He then describes, how by 
the action radiating from the incomprehensible centre, 
radiating into the element of Matter, and the subse- 
quent reaction from the periphery toward the centre 
rotation was caused, and how in the Ether, the world 
of forms came into existence, and grew into material 
density. Thus through the action of the Father in the 
Son, and "Holy Ghosf became manifest, and its mani- 

• Schopenhauer: "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung." 

82 



FORM. 83 

festation is the visible and invisible universe in one, 
with all its suns, stars, planets, their forms and inhabi- 
tants, with all the angels and demons, devas, elementals, 
men and animals, or in other words, with all the energies 
and powers and forms of the visible and invisible side of 
nature. 

This trinity manifests itself on three different planes 
or modes of action, that have been termed Matter, Soul, 
and Spirit, or according to the symbolism of ancient 
occult science, Earth, Water, and Fire. The One be- 
comes manifest in the Three, but the Three is a whole 
and does not consist of three parts, of which one comes 
into succession after another, it springs into existence 
at once. Reaction cannot exist without Action, and 
both are due to a co-existing Potency or Cause. 

Spirit or "Fire" is immaterial, formless, and universal, 
manifesting its power in forms. It is the "creator," the 
great "carpenter" of the universe, the "stepfather of 
Christ," whose wife is Maja (Nature), the ever im- 
maculate virgin. 

Soul or "Water" is a semi-material element, formless 
in its original state. It is the organising element of 
corporeal forms. It penetrates and surrounds the planets 
as it surrounds and penetrates the bodies of men and 
animals and all other bodies and forms, and all material 
forms will soon perish after the soul-principle has ceased 
to be. active in them. 

Matter or "Earth," or (as it is called in its primordial 
state) A'kasa, is an invisible material element pervad- 
ing all space. Condensed by the organising power of 
the soul, it clothes the forms of the latter and renders 
them visible on the physical plane. 

By the interaction of the three primordial elements, 
Spirit, Soul, and Matter, four intermediate links become 
manifest, and these four added to the three former 
represent seven principles. 

These three, respectively seven principles, must not 
be supposed to exist separately; they are seven aspects 
of one element, in the same sense as the seven notes of 
one octave are seven modifications of one vibration pro- 
ducing sound. Man is a unity; but also a trinity of ex- 



84 MAGIC 

pression, capable to enter four distinct states of con- 
sciousness and existence, a compound of four elements 
joined to the fifth One Element, making him a harmon- 
ious accord of five notes. He may also be regarded as a 
manifestation of three higher and three lower powers, 
in which the unmanifested seventh is to become manifest. 
All these divisions are legitimate and not arbitrary; be- 
cause they are based upon the action of natural certain 
laws. 

1. A. — The element of Matter, A'kasa, represented 

by "Earth." < 

2. AB. — A combination of Matter and Soul, known 

as the Astral Body, a mixture of "Earth and 
Water." 

3. B. — The Soul, known as the animal principle in 

man, represented by "Water." 

4. ABC. — The Essence of Life, a combination of 

Matter, Soul, and Spirit, "Earth, Water, and 
Fire." 

5. AC. — The Mind, a combination of Matter and 

Spirit, or "Earth and Fire" (the principle of 
Intellectuality) . 

6. BC. — The Spiritual Soul, a combination of Soul 

and pure Spirit, or "Water and Fire" (the 
principle of Spiritual Intelligence). 

7. C— Pure Spirit or "Fire."* 

The divisions adopted by Paracelsus and in "Esoteric 
Buddhism" are nearly identical with the above: 1. The 
physical body. 2. Vitality (Mumia). 3. Astral Body 
(Sidereal body). 4. Animal Soul. 5. Intellectual Soul. 
6. Spiritual Soul. (The man of the new olympus.) 7. 
Spirit. 

It is said that this division was also known to the 
ancient Jews, and that the Hebrew Alphabet, consist- 
ing of 22 letters, was made with reference to it ; because 
the three in seven states produces twelve symbols, and 
3+7+12=22. 

This sevenfold division of principles, representing the 
constitution of man as well as that of the universe as a 

* The Sanscrit terms for the seven principles are: 1, Praciti; 2, 
Lingasarira; 3, Kamarupa; 4, Jiva; 5, Manas; 6, Buddhi; 7, Atma. — 
See "Five Years of Theosophy," p. 151. 



FORM. 85 

whole, was also known to the ancient Egyptians, and 
described as follows — 

I. chat. The material body. 

bas. (heart) 

and ^Physical life. 

if. (breath) J 

Ka. The astral body (Personality). 

ab. Will. (Kama) The centre. 

ba. Soul (Manas). 

chaib. The shadow of the spirit (Buddhi). 

chu. The spirit (Atma). 

ancient Alchemists represented the same ideas 
by the symbols of the seven planets — 

*? Saturn. The material element. 

U Jupiter. Power or Life. 

; $ Mars. Will, Strength. 

O Sun. The centre; the source of all planets. 

$ Venus. Love. In its lower aspect desire. 

g Mercury. Mind, Intelligence. 

d Moon. Spirituality. 

The qualities of these powers differ in their combina- 
tion according to the preponderating influence of one 
over another; and this causes their aspects to be either 
good, or evil. Thus these aspects are bad as follows — 

If spirituality <L is overruled by materiality t? . 
If the mind g is dominated by blind force U. 
If love $ is overruled by passion $ . 
If the contrary is the case, their aspects are good. 
The Sun O occupies the centre of these planets; it is 
their parent, and not dominated by any of them. 

Jane Leade also adopts a sevenfold division of prin- 
ciples ; but in a reversed order — 

1. Spirit. The word. The creator. 

2. Wind. The breath or the life. 

3. Water. Coagulated wind (soul). 

4. Light. Intelligence. 

5. Heaven. The astral world. 



MAGIC. 



6. Air. Physical life. 

7. Earth. The matrix or centre. 

To these seven principles correspond four planes of 
existence or states of consciousness ; namely — 
I. The physical world. 
II. The astral world. 

III. The spiritual world. 

IV. The divine plane of existence. 

Each of these worlds has its own state of being, and 
each form in either of them contains all the above-named 
seven principles, which are fundamentally one and in- 
separable; only with this difference, that according to 
the plane in which a form exists, some of these principles 
are active while others are latent. 

Thus in a stone or a tree the higher principles are 
entirely latent and as if non-existent, while in one of 
the higher plane the higher principles are alone manifest 
while the lower ones have ceased to manifest any activity. 
The following table may give an approximate illustra- 
tion of this theory. The prominently active principles 
are printed in larger, and the less active ones in smaller, 
type; while those that are still latent, or have become 
so, are enclosed in brackets. 



Physical Nature. 


Astral Plane. 


Devachan. 


PHYSICAL MATTER. 


(Physical matter.) 


(Physical matter.) 


Physical life. 


(Physical life.) 


(Physical life.) 


Astral life. 


ASTRAL LIFE. 


(Astral life.) 


Kama life. 


Kama life. 


(Kama life.) 


( Lower Manas. 
\ (Higher Manas.) 


Lower Manas. 


(Lower Manas.) 


(Higher-Manas.) 


HIGHER MANAS. 


(Buddhi.) 


(Buddhi.) 


Buddhi. 


(Atma.) 


(Atma.) 


Atma. 



The proportion of activities of course differ in in- 
dividual cases. There are many variations. 

Upon this earth all the seven principles may become 
manifested in man; he may live alternatively or suc- 
cessively, in either one of these four states of conscious- 
ness ; his spirit belongs to God, his mind to heaven, his 
desires to the soul of the world, and his body to earth. 



FORM. 87 

After death the lower principles become inactive and 
he moves upwards on the scale of being in proportion 
as he has become attuned to it during his life. 

What are the conditions of the divine state of being 
we do not know nor care to speculate about it. Our 
object ought to be to attain it rather than to worry our 
brains in seeking to gratify our scientific curiosity in 
regard to it. It might be supposed that in this plane 
only the Buddhi, Atma, and the highest essence of the 
Manas is active; but Jacob Boehme tells us, that "all 
the Seven Spirits of God are born one in another; one 
gives birth to the other and there is neither first nor 
last. They are all seven equally eternal;"* and further- 
more he describes that the third principle reappears in 
the seventh; and that therein consists the "resurrection 
of the flesh, "f which causes a divine being to be — not 
an unsubstantial spirit — but possessing the "Body of 
God." "In the seventh form all the other forms of 
nature manifest their activity;" the element of earth 
therefore manifests itself again on a higher octave, and 
this will give us a key to the understanding of the 
meaning of the words of St. Paul, when he speaks of a 
body "that has been sowed in corruption and is raised 
in glory;" but which is surely not the astral form of a 
ghost. $ 

All forms are the expression of either one or more of 
these, elementary principles, and exist as long as their 
respective powers are active in them. They are not neces- 
sarily visible, because their visibility depends on their 
power to reflect light. Invisible gases may be solidified by 
pressure and cold, and rendered visible and tangible, and 
the most solid substances may be made invisible and 
intangible by the application of heat. The products of 
cosmic thought are not all visible to the physical eye, we 
see only those which are on our plane of existence. 

All bodies have their invisible spheres. Their visible 
spheres are limited by the periphery of their visible forms ; 
their invisible spheres extend farther into space. Their 
spheres cannot be always detected by physical instruments, 

* "The life and doctrines of Jacob Boehme," p. 73. 
tlbid. p. 84. %1 Cor. i. 6. 



88 MAGIC. 

but they nevertheless exist, and tinder certain conditions 
their existence can be proved to the senses. The sphere 
of an odoriferous body can be perceived by the organ of 
smell, the sphere of a magnet by the approach of iron, the 
sphere of a man or an animal by that most delicate of all 
instruments, the sensitive soul. 

These spheres are the magnetic, caloric, odic, luminous 
auras and other emanations belonging to every object in 
space. Such an emanation may sometimes be seen as the 
Aurora Borealis in the polar regions of our planet, or as 
the photosphere of the sun during an eclipse. The "glory" 
around the head of a saint is no poetical fiction, no more 
than the sphere of life radiating from a precious stone. 
As each sun has its system of planets revolving around it, 
so each body is surrounded by smaller centres of energy 
evolving from the common centre, and partaking of the 
attributes of that centre. Copper, Carbon, and Arsenic, 
for instance, send out auras of red; Lead and Sulphur 
emit blue colours; Gold, Silver, and Antimony, green; 
and Iron emits all the colours of the rainbow. Plants, 
animals, and men emit similar colours according to their 
characteristics; persons of a high spiritual character 
have beautiful auras of white and blue, gold and green, 
in various tints; while low natures emit principally dark 
red emanations, which in brutal and vulgar or villainous 
persons darken almost to black, and the collective auras 
of bodies of men or plants or animals, of cities and coun- 
tries, correspond to their predominant characteristics, so 
that a person whose sense of perception is sufficiently de- 
veloped may see the state of the intellectual and moral 
development of a place or a country by observing the 
sphere of its emanations. 

These spheres expand from the centre, and their 
periphery grows in proportion to the intensity of the 
energy acting within the centre. We know the sphere of 
a rose by the odour that proceeds from the latter if we 
have the power to smell, we know the character of the 
mind of a man if .we enter the sphere of his thoughts. 

The quality of psychic emanations depends on the 
state of activity of the centre from which they originate. 
They are symbols of the states of the soul of each form, 



FORM. 89 

they indicate the state of the emotions. Each emotion 
corresponds to a certain colour. Love corresponds to 
blue, Desire to red, Benevolence to green, and these col- 
ours may induce corresponding emotions in other souls. 
Blue has a soothing effect, and may tranquillise a maniac 
or subdue a fever; Red excites to passion, a steer will 
become furious at the sight of a red cloth, and an unreas- 
oning mob become infuriated at the sight of blood. This 
chemistry of the soul is not any more wonderful than the 
facts known in physical chemistry, and these processes 
take place according to the same law which causes Chlo- 
ride of Silver to turn from white into black if exposed to 
light. 

The thoughts of the Universal Mind expressed in mat- 
ter on the physical plane comprise all the forms of the 
mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms on Earth, de- 
scribed by physical science. Each material form contains 
within itself its ethereal counterpart which will, under 
certain conditions, separate itself from the more material 
part, or be extracted therefrom by the hands of an adept. 
These astral parts may be reclothed with condensed 
A'kasa and be rendered visible, and in this way an object 
can be duplicated by him who knows how to manipulate 
these invisible forces.* 

Such astral forms exist after their material forms have 
decayed ; the astral forms of the dead may be seen by the 
clairvoyant hovering over the graves, bearing the resem- 
blance of the once living man. They may be artificially 
infused with life and with a borrowed consciousness, and 
made use of in the practices of Necromancy and Black 
Magic, or be attracted to "spiritual seances" to represent 
the spirits of the dead. 

There are persons in whom this principle— either in 
consequence of constitutional peculiarities or in conse- 
quence of disease — is not very firmly united with the 
physical body, and may become separated from it for a 
short period.* Such persons are suitable "mediums" for 

* A. P. Sinnett: "The Occult World." 
* This intimate relation of the astral form and the physical body 
is often illustrated at so-called exposures of "spiritual mediums." 
If a materialised form is soiled by ink or soot, the colouring: matter 
will afterwards be found on the corresponding part of the medium's 
body, because, when the astral form re-enters that body, it will leave 
the soiling matter on the corresponding parts of the latter. 



90 MAGIC. 

so-called spirit-materialisations, their ethereal counter- 
parts appear separated from their bodies and assume the 
visible form of some person either living or dead. It 
receives its new mask by the unconscious or conscious 
thoughts of the persons present, by the reflections thrown 
out from their memories and minds, or it may be made to 
represent other characters by influences invisible to the 
physical eye. 

As the brain is the central organ for the circulation of 
nerve-fluid, and as the heart is the organ for the circula- 
tion of the blood, so the spleen is the organ from which 
the astral elements draw their vitality, and in certain 
diseases, where the action of the spleen is impeded, this 
"double" of a person may involuntarily separate itself 
from the body. It is nothing very unusual that a sick 
person feels "as if he were not himself," or as if another 
person was lying in the same bed with him, and that he 
himself were that other. Such cases of "Doppelgaeng- 
ers," Wraiths, Apparitions, Ghosts, &c, caused by the 
separation of the Lingasarira from the physical form can 
be found in many works treating of mystic phenomena 
occurring in nature."*" 

Usually these astral forms are without consciousness 
and without any life of their own; but they may be made 
to be the seat of life and consciousness, by withdrawing 
life from the material form and concentrating it into the 
astral body. A person who has succeeded in doing this 
may step out of his physical form and live independent of 
the latter, and an Adept even entirely remain outside his 
physical body and continue to live in his ethereal and in- 
visible form.* 

But there are also many forms whose natural home is 
the astral plane, of which physical science does not know, 
because they can be seen only by means of the astral 
perception, a faculty which is at present in possession of 
only comparatively few persons. The astral plane has, 

t Adolphe D'Assier: "I/humanite posthume." 

* The stories of fakirs who have been buried alive for months and 
resurrected afterwards might here be used as illustration. They are 
too well known to need repetition in this place. Moreover, phenomena, 
however well attested they may be, can never stand in the place of 
knowledge; they furnish no explanation of the mysterious laws of 
nature. The occurrence of phenomena proves nothing but that they 
occur. Real knowledge is never attained by the observation of ex- 
ternal phenomena, it can only be attained by understanding the law. 



FORM. 91 

like the physical plane, its mineral, vegetable, and animal 
kingdom, its four elements ; and as in our world the earth, 
the air, and the sea have their inhabitants, so in the astral 
world there are inhabitants, the Spirits of Nature, to be 
found in the elements of the earth, air, water, and fire. 
They are all the product of originally shapeless ideas, 
existing in the Universal Mind, condensed into organised 
forms by the creative power of nature ; visible and ob- 
jective to each other as long as they exist on the same 
plane. 

Individual forms on that plane often make their pres- 
ence felt to men or animals, but under ordinary circum- 
stances they cannot be seen. They may, however, be seen 
by the clairvoyant, and under certain conditions, even 
assume visible and tangible shapes. Their bodies are of 
an elastic semi-material essence, ethereal enough so as not 
to be detected by the physical sight, and they change their 
forms according to certain laws. Bulwer Lytton says: 
"Life is one all-pervading principle, and even the thing 
that seems to die and putrefy but engenders new life and 
changes to new forms of matter. Reasoning then by 
analogy — if not a leaf, if not a drop of water, but is no 
less than yonder star — a habitable and breathing world — 
common sense would suffice to teach that the circumfluent 
Infinite, which you call space — the boundless Impalpable 
which divides the earth from the moon and stars — is filled 
also with its correspondent and appropriate life." 

And further on he says : "In the drop of water you 
see animalcube vary; how vast and terrible are some of 
these monster-mites as compared with others. Equally 
so with the inhabitants of the atmosphere. Some of 
surpassing wisdom, some of horrible malignity; some 
hostile as fiends to man; others gentle as messengers be- 
tween Earth and Heaven."* 

Our ignorant and therefore sceptical age is accustomed 
to admire in such descriptions the fancy of the writer, 
never suspecting that they were intended to convey a 
truth; but there are many witnesses to testify that such 
invisible but substantial and variously shaped beings exist, 
and that they, by the educated will of man, can be made 

•Bulwer Lytton: "Zanoni.'" 



92 MAGIC. 

conscious, intelligent, visible, and even useful to man. 
This assertion is supported by the testimony found in the 
writings of Rosicrucians, Cabbalists, Alchemists, and 
Adepts, as well as in the ancient books of wisdom of the 
East and in the Bible of the Christians. 

Such existences are, however, not necessarily personal 
beings. They may be impersonal forces, acquiring form, 
and life, and consciousness by their contact with man. 
The Gnomes and Sylphes, the Undines and Salamanders, 
do not entirely belong to the realm of fable, although they 
are something very different of what the ignorant believe 
them to be. How insignificant and little appears indi- 
vidual man in the infinity of the universe ! and yet there is 
only a comparatively insignificant part of the universe 
revealed to him by the senses. Could he see the worlds 
within worlds above, beneath, and everywhere, swarming 
with beings whose existence he does not suspect, while 
they, perhaps, know nothing of his existence, he would be 
overwhelmed with terror and seek for a god to protect 
him; and yet there are none of these beings higher or as 
powerful as the spiritual man who has learned to know 
his powers.* 

The beings of the spiritual plane are such as have once 
been men, their constitution is beyond the comprehension 
of those that are not their equals, and their ethereal forms 
in a state of perfection we cannot conceive. Still higher 
beings, having outgrown the necessity of manifesting 
themselves in a form, enter the state of the formless. We 
may look upon a personal man as a single note in the 
great orchestra composing the world, and upon a Dhyan, 
Chohanf as a full accord or a compound of notes in the 
symphony of the gods. There may be unharmonious 
compositions of notes in music, and there are evil spirit- 
ualities as there is darkness in contradistinction to light. 

The surface realm of the Soul is the realm of the emo- 
tions. Emotions are not merely the results of physio- 
logical processes depending on causes coming from the 
physical plane, but they belong to a form of life on the 
astral plane, they come and go without any known cause. 

* See "Theophrastus Paracelsus," Chap. v. 
t Son of Wisdom (Planetary spirit). 



FORM. 93 

The state of the weather, or circumstances over which we 
have no control, cause certain emotions. A person enter- 
ing a room where every one is laughing is liable to par- 
ticipate in the laughter without knowing the cause of the 
hilarity; a whole crowd may be swayed by the intense 
emotion of a speaker, although they may not even under- 
stand what he says ; one hysterical woman may create an 
epidemic of hysteria among other women, and a whole 
congregation may become excited by the harangue of an 
emotional exhorter no matter whether his language is 
foolish or wise. A sudden accumulation of emotion or 
energy on the astral plane can kill a person as quickly as 
a sudden explosion of powder. We hear of persons who 
were "transfixed by terror" or "paralysed by fear." In 
such cases the astral consciousness having become abnor- 
mally active at the expense of the consciousness on the 
physical plane, the activity of life on the physical plane 
ceases when the affected person faints or dies. 

All forme come into existence according to certain laws. 
The solar microscope shows how, in a solution of salt, a 
centre of matter is formed, and how to that centre its 
"kindred forces are attracted, crystallising around it, and 
becoming solid and firm. Each kind of salt produces the 
peculiar crystals that belong to its class and no other, 
however often the process may be repeated. In the 
vegetable kingdom the seed of one plant atracts to itself 
those forces which it requires to produce a plant resem- 
bling its parent; the seed of an apple-tree can produce 
nothing else but an apple-tree, and an acorn can grow into 
nothing else but an oak. The principal characteristics of 
an animal will be those that belong to its parents, and the 
external appearance of a man will correspond more or 
less to that of the race and family in which he was born. 

As every mathematical point in space may develop into 
a living and conscious and visible being, after once a cer- 
tain centre of energy (a germ) has been formed, so in the 
Invisible realm of the soul astral forms may come into 
existence, wherever the necessary conditions for their 
growth exist. In the same manner as a living germ on 
the physical plane attracts matter for its growth a psychic 
germ on the astral plane causes to crystalise around a 



94 MAGIC. 

thought an invisible but nevertheless substantial entity. 
As the forms on the physical plane correspond to the 
characters of the germs, so the forms on the astral plane 
are expressions of the characteristics of the prevailing 
emotions on that plane. They manifest themselves either 
in beautiful or in horrible shapes, because every form is 
only the symbol or the expression of the character whicfi 
it represents. 

The animal forms are expressions of forces acting on 
the animal plane. Some have a consciousness of their 
own and realise their existence, but under ordinary cir- 
cumstances they have no more intelligence than animals, 
and cannot act intelligently. They follow their blind 
attraction, as iron is attracted to a magnet, and wherever 
they find suitable conditions for their development, they 
are attracted thither. We therefore see that if an emo- 
tion is not controlled in the beginning it grows and be- 
comes uncontrollable. Some people have died of grief 
and some others of joy. 

But if these unintelligent forms are infused with the 
principle of intelligence proceeding from man, they be- 
come intelligent and act in accordance with the dictates 
of the master from which they receive their will and 
intelligence, and who may employ them for good or for 
evil. Every emotion that arises in man may combine with 
the astral forces of nature and create a being, which may 
be perceived, by persons possessing higher faculties of 
perception, as an active and living entity. Every senti- 
ment which finds expression in word or action calls into 
existence a living entity on the astral plane. Some of these 
forms are very enduring, according to the intensity 
and duration of the thought that created them, while 
others are the creations of one moment and vanish in the 
next. 

There are numerous cases on record in which some 
person or other having committed some crime is described 
as having been persecuted for years by some avenging 
demon, who would appear objectively and disappear 
again. Such demons are products of the involuntary 
action of the imagination of their victims; but they are 



FORM. 95 

nevertheless real to them.* They may be called into 
existence by memory and remorse, and their images exist- 
ing in the mind, become objective by fear, because fear is 
a repulsive function; it instinctively repulses the object 
of which a man is afraid, and by repelling the image from 
the centre towards the periphery of the sphere of mind, 
that image is rendered objective. 

Instances are known in which persons have been driven 
to suicide, hoping thereby to escape these persecuting 
demons. Such demons are said to have in some cases 
taken even a tangible form. But whether tangible or 
intangible, the substance of which they are formed is 
merely a projection of substance of the person to whom 
they thus appear. They are, so to say, that person him- 
self.* 

An Adept in a letter to Mr. Sinnett says : 
"Every thought of man upon being evolved passes 
into another world and becomes an active entity by asso- 
ciating itself — coalescing, we might term it — with an 
Elemental — that is to say, with one of the semi-intelligent 

• A person in Paris became insane and was removed to an insane 
asylum in Italy, where he raged and had to be confined to a solitary 
cell. After a while he became suddenly well and was permitted to 
return to Paris. Some months afterwards a report reached him, thst 
the cell which he had occupied in the asylum was still haunted by his 
"ghost," which continued raving and making a noise, and that this 
ghost had been seen by many persons. Curious to see his own "ghost" 
the man returned to Italy, went to the asylum, saw his ghost, and 
becoming again obsessed with it, remained insane to the end of his life. 

* In the "Lives of the Saints," and in the history of witchcraft, we 
often find instances of the appearance of "doubles" in visible and even 
tangible forms. Such phenomena take place in mediumistic persons, if 
by contrary emotions the Will becomes divided, acting in two different 
directions, and projecting thereby two forms; for it is the Will of man 
that creates subjective forms, consciously or unconsciously, and under 
certain conditions they become objective and visible. 

As an illustration of this law we may cite from the Acta Sanctorum 
an episode in the life of Saint Dominic. He was once called to the 
bedside of a sick person, who told him that Christ had appeared to 
him. The saint answered that this was impossible, and that the 
apparition had been produced by the devil, because only holy persons 
could have an apparition of Christ. As he said so, a doubt as to 
whether the apparition seen may not have been a true one after all, 
entered his mind, and immediately a division of consciousness was 
produced, which caused the double of Dominies to appear at the other 
side of the patient's bed. The two Dominies were seen by the patient, 
and heard to dispute with each other, and while one Dominic asserted 
that the apparition had been the work of the devil, the other one 
maintained that it was the true Christ. The two Dominies were so 
exactly identical, that the patient did not know which of them was 
the true saint and which one his image, and he could not make up his 
mind what to believe; until at last the saint called upon God to assist 
him, — that is to say, he concentrated his will-power again within him- 
self; his consciousness became again a unity, and the "double" dis- 
appeared from view. 

Absurd as such stories may appear to our "enlightened age," their 
absurdity ceases when the occult laws of nature, and the fact of the 
possibilities of a double consciousness are understood. 



96 MAGIC. 

forces of the kingdoms. It survives as an active intelli- 
gence — a creature of the mind's begetting — for a longer 
or shorter period, proportionate with the original intensity 
of the cerebral action which generated it. Thus, a good 
thought is perpetuated as an active, beneficent power, an 
evil one as a maleficent demon. And so man is con- 
tinually peopling his current in space with the offspring 
of his fancies, desires, impulses, and passions ; a current 
which re-acts upon any sensitive or nervous organisation, 
which comes in contact with it, in proportion to its 
dynamic intensity. . . . The Adept evolves these 
shapes consciously, other men throw them off uncon- 
sciously."* 

This testimony is corroborated by one coming from 
another source, and proving that to create subjective 
forms it is not necessary to give a distinct shape to our 
thoughts by the power of imagination, but that each 
state of feeling or sentiment may find expression in sub- 
jective forms, whether or not we may be conscious of 
their existence. A form is a state of mind, and a senti- 
ment is a state of mind; a sentiment expressed will be 
represented by a corresponding f orm.f 

*A. P. Sinnett: "The Occult World." 

t Mr. Whitworth, a clairvoyant, describes how in his youth, while 
seeing a German professor perform on an organ, he noticed a host of 
appearances moving about the keyboard — veritable Lilliputian sprites, 
fairies, and gasmes, astonishingly minute in size, yet as perfect in form, 
and features as any of the larger people in the room. He described 
them as being divided into sexes and clothed in a most fantastic man- 
ner; in form, appearance, and movement they were in perfect accord 
with the theme. 

"In the quick measures, how madly they danced, waving their 
plumed hats and fans in very ecstasy, and darting to and fro in 
inconceivable rapidity, with feet beating time in rain-like patter of 
accord! Quick as a flash, when the music changed to the solemn 
cadence of a march for the dead, the airy things vanished, and in their 
place came black-robed gnomes, dressed like cowled monks, sour-faced 
Puritans, or mutes in the black garb of a funeral procession! Strangest 
of all, on every tiny face was expressed the sentiment of the music, so that 
I could instantly understand the thought and feeling that was intended 
to be conveyed. In a wild burst of sounding grief came a rush of mothers, 
tear-eyed and with dishevelled hair, beating their breasts and wailing 
pious lamentations over their dead loved ones. These would be fol- 
lowed by plumed knights with shield and spear, and host of fiery troopsV 
mounted or afoot, red-handed in the fiery strife of bloody battle, as 
the clang of martial music came leaping from the keyboard, and ever, 
as each change brought its new set of sprites, the old ones wouM. 
vanish into the air as suddenly as they had come. Whenever a discord 
was struck, the tiny sprite that appeared was some misshapen creature, 
with limbs and dress awry, usually a humpbacked dwarf, whose voice 
was gutteral and rasping, and his every movement ungainly and dis- 
agreeable." 

He then describes how in his riper age he saw such fairy-like beings 
coming from the lips of persons talking, and which seemed in every 
action the very counterpart of the feeling conveyed in the uttered 
speech. If the words were inspired by good sentiments, these figures 



FORM. 97 

All forms are manifestations of life, they have no life 
of their own; for life is a universal power. They are 
the creations of thought-power, acting upon the A'kasa. 
The creations of man are kept alive by the life-power 
that radiates into them from the life-centre in man who 
is a god in that world which he creates in his mind; 
his creatures are like shadows, vanishing when the foun- 
tain of light from which they drink is exhausted. When 
the psychical action of man, that gave them life, ceases 
to act, or acts in another direction, they will disappear 
sooner or later, and in the same way the forms of men 
disappear, when the life coming from God is withdrawn. 
However, as the corpse of a man does not dissolve im- 
mediately as soon as the principle of life is departed, 
but decays slowly or rapidly according to their molecular 
density and cohesion, likewise the astral forms and 
memories created by the thoughts and sentiments of man 
require time for their dissolution. They continue to 
exist as long as man infuses life and consciousness into 
them by his thought and his will, and if they have once 
gained a certain amount of power, they may still cling 
to him, although he may not desire their companionship. 
They depend on him for their life, and the struggle for 
existence forces them to remain with the source from 
which they draw their vitality. If they depart from 
that fountain they die; they are therefore forced to re- 
main, and, like the phantom created by "Frankenstein," 
they persecute their creators with their unwelcome pres- 

were transcendentally beautiful; bad sentiments produced horrid-looking 
creatures; hate was expressed by hissing snakes and dark, fiery devils; 
treacherous words produced figures beautiful in front and disgusting 
and horrid behind; while love produced forms silvery, white, and full 
of beauty and harmony. 

"On one never-to-be-forgotten occasion I was a pained witness to a 
scene of living faithfulness on one side and a double-faced, treacherous 
duplicity on the other. A fair young girl and her departing lover had 
met to exchange greetings ere he went on a distant journey. Each 
word of hers gave forth beautiful, radiant fairies; but while the front 
half of each that was turned to the girl was equally fair to look upon, 
and smiled with all the radiant seeming of undying affection, the rear 
half of each was black and devilish, with fiery snakes and red forked 
tongues protruding from their cruel lips, as gleams of wicked cunning 
danced in sneaking, sidelong glances from the corners of the half- 
closed eyes. These dark backgrounds of the little figures were horrible 
to look at, ever shifting, dodging, and seeming to shut up within 
themselves, as they sought to keep only bright and honest toward 
the trusting girl, and hold the black deception out of sight. And it 
was noticeable that while a halo of cloudless radiance surrounded the 
good outside seeming, a pall of thick vapour hung like a canopy of 
unbroken gloom above the other."* 

* Religio-Philosophical Journal. 



98 MAGIC. 

ence. To rid oneself of such a presence, he who is perse- 
cuted should direct the full power of his aspirations and 
thoughts into another and higher direction, and thereby 
starve them to death. In this way the spiritual principle 
of every man becomes his special Redeemer, who by the 
transformation of character saves him from the effects 
of his sin, and before whose pure light the illusions 
created by the lower attractions will melt like the snow 
under the influence of the sun. 

Elemental forms being the servants of their creator — 
in fact, his own self — may be used by him for good or 
for evil purposes. Love and hate creates subjective 
forms of beautiful or of horrid shapes, and being infused 
with consciousness, obtain life, and they may be sent 
on some errand for good or for evil. Through them 
the magician blends his own life and consciousness with 
the person he desires to affect. A lock of hair, a piece 
of clothing, or some object that has been worn by the 
person he' desires to affect, forms a connecting link. The 
same object can be attained if that person is put into 
possession of an article belonging to the magician, be- 
cause wherever a portion of anything with which the 
magician was connected exists, there will a part of his 
own elements exist, which will form a magnetic link 
between him and the person whom he wishes to affect. 
If he projects his astral form at a distance, his personality 
will be present with his victim, although the latter may 
not be able to see it.* 

The astral image of a person may be projected con- 
sciously or unconsciously to a distance. If he intensely 
thinks of a certain place, his thought will be there, and 
if his thought is spiritual and consequently self-conscious 
he will be there himself. Wherever a man's conscious- 
ness is, there is the man himself, no matter whether his 
physical body is there or not. 

The history of spiritualism and somnambulism fur- 
nishes abundant evidence that a person may be con- 
sciously and knowingly in one place, while his physical 
body lies dormant in another. Franciscus Xavier was 
thus seen in two different places at one and the same 

* Lord Lytton, "Zanoni" and "Strange Story." 



FORM. 99 

time. Likewise Apollonius of Tyana, and innumerable 
others mentioned in ancient and modern history. 

The Elemental sent by a magician is a constituting 
part of the magician himself, and if the victim is vulner- 
able or mediumistic, the latter may be injured by the 
former. But the astral form of the magician may also 
be injured by physical force, and as the astral form re- 
enters the physical body, the latter will partake of the 
injuries inflicted upon the former. 

The magician, who, by the power of his will, has ob- 
tained control over the semi-intelligent forces of Nature, 
can make use of these forces for the purposes of good 
or evil. The help!ess medium, through whom manifesta- 
tions of occult power take place, can neither cause nor 
control such manifestations. He cannot control the ele- 
mentals, but is controlled by them. The elements of his 
body serve as instruments through which these astral 
existences act, after the Medium has surrendered his 
will and given up the supreme command over his soul. 
He sits passively and waits for what these elemental 
may do; he unconsciously furnishes them with his life 
and power to think, and his thoughts and the thoughts 
of those that are present become reflected in these astral 
forms, enabling them to manifest apparently an intelli- 
gence of their own. 

A medium for spirit-manifestations is merely an in- 
strument for the manifestation of invisible forces over 
which he has no control. The best of such mediums 
have been very unjustly blamed for "cheating." The 
thoughts of the person visiting a Medium, are reflected 
by him. It is therefore not the Medium's person that 
cheats purposely, but his visitors are cheating themselves 
through his instrumentality. A mirror that would not 
reflect all the objects that are brought before it, would 
be a very unnatural and deceptive thing ; a Medium who 
would only reflect such thoughts as he or she chooses to 
reflect would be an impostor, for exercising an intelli- 
gence of his own, he would not be in that passive con- 
dition which constitutes his mediumship. 

The Adept in Magic is not the slave of these forces, 
but controls them by the power of his will. He con- 



100 MAGIC. 

sciously infuses life and consciousness and intelligence 
into them, and makes them act as he pleases ; they obey 
his command, because they are a part of himself. The 
spiritualists do this unconsciously; they sing at their 
seances, thinking that the more the conditions are har- 
monious the better will be the manifestations. The true 
reason for this is, that the more the thoughts of the 
sitters are in a state of abstraction, the more they are 
"absent-minded," the easier it will be for the Elementals 
to take possession of them. 

The astral elements used by the Elementals in spiritual 
seances for the purpose of producing physical pheno- 
mena, are not only taken from the medium, but from all 
present, whose constitution is not strong, and who may 
therefore be easily vampirized for the purpose of furnish- 
ing the required elements. In seances for materialisa- 
tions, they are also taken for the clothing of those present, 
and furnish material for the drapery of the "spirits," and 
it has been observed, that the clothing worn by people 
who frequently attend to such seances, wears out sooner 
than usual. 

To bring fresh-spilled blood into such "spiritual 
seances," increases the strength of the "materialisations" 
very much, and a knowledge of such facts has given 
rise to some abominable practices of black magic, which 
are still going on in many parts of the world, although 
secretly and unknown to the public. This knowledge 
has also undoubtedly given rise to the sacrifice of animals 
in the performance of religious ceremonies. A certain 
executioner was unfortunately gifted with clairvoyance, 
and every time after having decapitated a person he 
could see the "spirits" of dead people — sometimes even 
his friends and relatives — pounce upon the fresh-spilled 
blood of the criminal, and feed on its emanation and 
aura. It is also a fact that, at a time when the blood- 
drinking mania in Europe was started by medical ignor- 
ance, some people who practised it became insane, and 
many became demoralised by it.* 

* One of the favourite aids for the materialisation of spooks is the 
aura seminalis, which increases the power of ghosts, elementals and 
vampires for assuming a substantial form. There are many curious 
practices going on at such seances, which we must forbear to describe. 
See "The Life and Doctrines of Theophrastus Paracelsus," pp. 66 and »» 



FORM. 101 

The astral remnant of man is without judgment and 
reason, it goes wherever his instincts attract it, or wher- 
ever any unsatisfied craving impels it to go. If you 
wish to be haunted by the "ghost" of a man, attract 
him by the power of desire. Leave some promise you 
made to him unfulfilled, and instinctively the astral form 
of the deceased will be attracted to you to seek its ful- 
filment, drawn to you by its own unsatisfied desire. 

It is not his fault if you do not perceive his presence 
and hear his voice, it is because your astral senses are 
asleep and unconscious; you may feel his presence and 
it may cause a feeling of depression in your mind; he 
speaks to you, but in a language which you have not 
yet learned to understand. In those elementary remnants 
remains that which constituted the lower nature of man, 
and if they are temporarily infused with life, they will 
manifest the lower characteristics of the deceased, such 
as have not been sufficiently refined to join his immortal 
part. If a music-box is set to play a certain melody and 
made to start, it will produce that same melody and no 
other, although it has no consciousness of its own. The 
remnant of emotional and intellectual powers in the 
astral remnant of man will, if this remnant is made to 
speak, become manifest in the same kind of language 
which the man during his life used to speak. 

The fresh corpse of a person who has suddenly been 
killed; may be galvanised into a semblance of life by the 
application of a galvanic battery. Likewise the astral 
corpse of a person may be brought back into an artificial 
life by being infused with a part of the life principle of 
the medium. If that corpse is one of a very intellectual 
person, it may talk very intellectually; and if it was 
that of a fool, it will talk like a fool. The intellectual 
action resembles mechanical motion in so far, that if it 
is once set into action, it will continue without any 
special efTort of the will, until impulse is exhausted. 
We often see this in daily life. There are old and young 
people frequently seen, who are in the habit of telling 
some favourite story, which they have already told many 
times, and which they repeat on every occasion. It may 
be noticed, that when such an one begins to tell his 



103 MAGIC. 

story, it is of no use to tell him that one knows it already. 
He has to finish the story nevertheless. 

An orator or a preacher does not need to think and 
reason about each word he utters. When the stream 
of ideas once flows, it flows without any effort of will. 
If life from a medium, flows into the astral brain of a 
deceased person, that brain will elaborate its latent ideas 
in the same way it was accustomed to do during life. 

We also reason while we dream; we draw logical 
conclusions during our sleep; but reason is absent, and 
although, while we dream, our logic seems to be reason- 
able, nevertheless we often see that it was foolish, when 
we awake and our reason returns. 

The mental organism of man resembles a clockwork, 
which if it is once set into operation will continue to run 
until its force is exhausted; but there is no clockwork 
which winds itself up without extraneous assistance, and 
there is no mental organism able to think without a 
power that causes it to begin the process of intellectua- 
tion. 

But here we must draw the attention to one of the 
many dangers of that amusement called the practice of 
spiritism. 

In a departed soul the attraction of good and evil 
still continues to act, until the final separation of the 
higher and the lower takes place. It may follow the 
attraction of the higher principles and be attracted to 
"heaven," or again come into contact with matter through 
the instrumentality of mediumship, take again part in 
the whirling dance of life, though by vicarious organs; 
follow once more the seduction of the senses, and lose 
entirely sight of the immortal self. 

It is therefore not merely dangerous to a person to 
hold intercourse with the "spirits of the departed;" but 
it is especially injurious to the latter, — as long as the 
final separation of their lower principles from the higher 
ones has not yet taken place. Necromancy is a vile art, 
and so has therefore always been abhorred. It may dis- 
turb the blissful dreams of the sleeping soul, which 
aspires to a higher state of existence. It is like disturb- 
ing the peace of a saint during his hours of meditation, 



FORM. 103 

or to seduce a child. It is a step towards degradation; 
and as every impulse has a tendency to repeat itself, the 
most terrible consequences may follow after what seemed 
to be at first merely some innocent amusement. 

These astral remnants are used by the black magician 
and by the elemental forces in nature for the purpose 
of evil. If they are unconscious, they will only serve 
as the blind instruments of the latter; if they are con- 
scious he may enter into an alliance and co-operate with 
them. 

Such alliance, either consciously or unconsciously on 
the part of him who enters into such "an unspiritual inter- 
course, may take place between an evil-disposed person 
and a very evil inhabitant of the spiritual plane. Many 
people who are in actual possession of powers to work 
black magic work evil unconsciously; that is to say, 
they are unconscious of the effects which their will 
produces and of the mode in which it acts. The spiritual 
force created by hate enters the organism of another, 
and the person from whom the evil power proceeds may 
be entirely ignorant of it. Such black magicians uncon- 
sciously furnish the elements by which their own evil 
spirit acts. If the will of a black magician is not strong 
enough to effect his evil purpose, the force will return 
and kill the magician. This is undoubtedly true, and the 
grossest illustration of it is, if a person by a fit of rage 
or jealousy is induced to kill himself. It is the reaction 
following an unfulfilled desire, which induces the rash 
act ; the act is merely a result of his previous mental state. 

The surest protection against all the practices of black 
magic, whether they are caused consciously or uncon- 
sciously, is to acquire strength of character — in other 
words, faith in the divine power within one's own soul. 

As man becomes ennobled, the lower elements in his 
constitution are thrown off and replaced by higher ones, 
and in a similar manner a transformation takes place 
in the opposite way if he degrades himself by his thoughts 
and acts. Sensual man attracts from the A'kasa those 
elements that his sensuality requires, for gross pleasures 
can only be felt by gross matter. A man with brutal 
instincts growing and increasing degrades himself into a 



104 MAGIC. 

brute in character, if not in external form. But as the 
form is only an expression of character, even that form 
may come to approach an animal in resemblance. 

The proof of this assertion is seen every day, for we 
meet every day in the streets brutish men, whose animal 
instincts are only too well expressed in their external 
forms. We meet with human snakes, hogs, wolves, and 
those upon whom alcohol has stamped his seal, and it 
does not need the instructions given in books on physi- 
ognomy to enable almost anybody to read the character 
of certain persons more or less correctly expressed in 
their exterior forms. 

In the physical plane the inertia of matter is greater 
than in the astral plane, and consequently its changes 
are slow. Astral matter is more active, and changes 
its form more rapidly. The astral body of a man whose 
character resembled an animal will therefore appear to 
the seer as an animal in its outward expression.* 

The astral form of an evil person may appear in an 
animal shape if it is so filled with brutish instincts as 
to become identified with the image of that animal 
which is the expression of such instincts. It may even 
enter the form of an animal and obsess it, and it some- 
times happens that it enters such forms for its own 
protection against immediate decomposition and death. 

It would be easy to give anecdotes, illustrating in- 
stances, in which such things took place* The principal 
object of the reader should be to learn to know the nature 
of his own constitution and the law which rules in all 
forms. If he once understands the modes in which the 
law acts, it will be a matter of little importance to know 
in what particular cases it has manifested itself in such 
modes. Accounts of phenomena can never supply the 
place of the understanding of the law. 

* E. Swedenborg: "Heaven and Hell." 
♦For examples, see Goerres: "Christian Mysticism;" Maximillian 
Perty: "Mystic Phenomena in Nature;" D'Assier: "Posthumus Human- 
ity;" Catharina Crowe: "Nightside of Nature;" Hardinge Britten: 
"History of Spiritualism;" H. P. Blavatsky: "Isis Unveiled," &c, &c. 







CHAPTER IV. 

LIFE. 

"I never was not, nor shall I hereafter cease to be." 

Bhagavad Gita. 

T^HE universe of forms may be compared to a kaleido- 
*■ scope in which the various forms of the original 
energy manifest themselves in an endless variety, 
appearing, disappearing, and re-appearing again. As in 
a kaleidoscope the pieces of variously-coloured glass do 
not change their substance, but only change their posi- 
tions, and, through the delusive reflections of mirrors at 
each turn of the instrument, are made to appear in new 
constellations and figures, so the One Life manifesting 
itself appears in an infinite number of forms unconscious 
or conscious, blind or intelligent, voluntary or involuntary, 
from the atom, whose auras and ethers rush through a 
common vortex,* up to the blazing suns whose photo- 
spheres extend over millions of miles, and from the 
microscopic Amoeba, up to perfect Man, whose intelli- 
gence conquers the gods. 

Forms are materialised thoughts. If you can control 
thought you can control life and call into existence a 
form; but few persons are able to hold on to one 
thought even for one minute of time, because their 
minds are wavering and their will is divided. If a form 
comes into existence on the physical plane, its growth 
is simply a process by which something that already 
exists in thought becomes visible and material. This 
something is the character of the form, and as each 
character is individual and a whole, it becomes expressed 
in all parts of the form. A human being — for instance — 
will not have the body of a man and the head of an 
animal, but its human character will be expressed in 

♦Babbit: "Principles of Light and Colour." 
105 



106 MAGIC. 

all its parts, and as the character constituting humanity- 
is expressed in all human individuals, so is the char- 
acter of an individual expressed in all its parts. This 
is a truth upon which the doctrines of Astrology, Phren- 
ology, Chiromancy, Physiognomy, &c., are based, which 
are necessarily true, because Nature is a Unity. An 
animal, a plant, or a man, is a unity, and is therefore 
expressed in all the parts of the forms. It can be scien- 
tifically demonstrated that each component part of an 
organism is a microcosm, in which are represented the 
principles composing that organism. We may by examin- 
ing a part of a leaf know that it comes from a plant, and 
by looking at an animal substance see that it came from 
an animal, or by testing even the most minute part of a 
mineral or metal know that it belongs to the mineral 
kingdom. Likewise we may read a man's character in 
his hands or face or feet or in any other part of his 
body, if we have acquired the art how to read it cor- 
rectly. 

Upon this law is based the science of Psychometry* 
By this science we may obtain a true history of past 
events. By psychometrically examining a stone taken 
from a house we may obtain correct information in 
regard to the former or present inhabitants of that 
house, or a fossil may give us a true description of 
antediluvian scenery and of the mode of life of pre- 
historic animals or men. By the psychometrical examina- 
tion of a letter we may obtain information about the 
person who wrote the letter and also of the place in 
which the letter was written.f If this art were universal- 
ly known and practised, criminals could be detected by 
examining psychometrically a piece of the wall, the 
floor, or the furniture of the room in which a murder or 
robbery was committed; it would make an end to con- 
victing of innocent persons on circumstantial evidence, 
or to letting the guilty escape fot want of proof ; for the 
psychometer would, by the superior powers of his per- 

* Prof. W. Denton: "Soul of Things." J. R. Buchanan: "Manual of 
Psychometry." 

t By submitting a letter which I had received In an occult manner 
from a "Master" in Tibet, to a German peasant woman, for the purpose 
of having it examined psychometrically, I received a correct description 
of a certain temple in Tibet, and of certain persons with whom I 
afterwards became acquainted. — H. 



LIFE. 107 

ception with the spiritual eye, see the murderer or 
robber or counterfeiter as plain as if he had seen them 
with his external eyes while the deed was committed. 

Each form is the external expression of a certain* 
character which it represents, and as such it has certain 
peculiar attributes, which distinguish it from other 
forms. A change of its character is followed by a 
gradual change of the form. An individual who be- 
comes degraded in morals will, in the course of time, 
show his degradation in his external appearance ; persons 
of a different appearance and different characters may. 
in the course of time, as their characters harmonise, 
resemble each other to a certain extent in appearance. 
Forms of life, belonging to the same class and species, 
resemble each other, and each nationality has certain 
characteristics expressed in the individuals belonging to 
it. A full-blooded Irishman will not easily be mistaken 
for a full-blooded Spaniard, although the two may be 
dressed alike, but, if they emigrate, they or their 
children will in time lose the national character which 
they possessed. Change of character changes the form; 
but a change of form does not necessarily change the 
character. A man may lose a leg and become a cripple, 
and still his character may remain the same as before; 
a child may grow into a man, and still his character 
remain that of a child unless modified by education. 

These facts are incontrovertible proofs that the char- 
acter of a being is more essential than his external form. 
If the character of an individual were to depend on his 
inherited form, children born of the same parents and 
educated under the same circumstances would always 
manifest the same moral characteristics, but it is well 
known that the characters of such children often differ 
widely from each other, and possess characteristics which 
their parents do not possess. 

If, as it frequently happens, children show the same 
or similar talents and intellectual capacities of their 
parents, such a fact is by not means a proof that the 
parents of the child's physical body are also the parents 
or producers of its intellectual germ; but it may be 
taken as an additional evidence of the truth of the 



108 MAGIC. 

doctrine of reincarnation, because the spiritual monad of 
the child would be naturally attracted, in its efforts to 
reincarnate, to the bodies of parents, whose mental and 
intellectual constitution would correspond nearest to its 
own talents and inclinations, developed during a pre- 
vious earthly life. 

"Character" means "individuality." It is that which 
distinguishes one individual from another. That which 
represents the true character of something is its individual 
being, and not its corporeal form, and this individuality 
exists after the corporeal body, which was the expres- 
sion of its qualities which has been dissolved. This 
individuality, called the "soul," is not seen with our 
physical eyes, neither during the life of the form nor 
after its death. The life of the body may depart; but 
the life of the individuality is independent from that 
of the form or personality. 

The individuality may belong either to a class as 
a whole, or to separate isolated beings. In the lower 
kingdoms no differentiation of character or soul exists; 
there is only a differentiation of form; they have one 
common soul; but in intelligent beings a distinct in- 
dividuality belongs to each form; each self-conscious 
being has its own individual soul as soon as it has 
attained an individual character, and its individuality 
is independent of the existence of its personality. Forms 
perish; but the individuality remains unchanged after 
their death. 

Seen from this standpoint, "death" is life, because, 
during the time that death lasts, that which is essential 
does not change; life is death, because only during life 
in the form the character is changed, and old tendencies 
and inclinations die and are replaced by others. Our 
passions and vices may die while we live ; if they survive 
us they will be born again. 

The character of an oak exists before the acorn begins 
to grow, but the growing germ attracts from earth and 
air such elements as it needs to produce an oak; the 
soul of a child exists as such before the physical 
form of the child is born into the world, and during its 
life in the form it may attract from the spiritual atmos- 



LIFE. 109 

phere the elements to which its aspirations and tendencies 
reach. Each seed will grow best in the soil that is best 
adapted to its constitution, each human monad existing 
in the subjective state will be attracted at the time of its 
incarnation to parents whose qualities furnish the best 
soil for its own tendencies and inclinations, and whose 
moral and mental attributes correspond to its own. The 
physical parents cannot be the progenitors of the spirit- 
ual germ of the child; that germ is the product of a 
previous spiritual evolution, through which it has passed 
in connection with former objective lives. In the present 
existence of a being the character of the being that will 
be its successor is prepared. Therefore every man may be 
truly said to be his own father; for he is the incarnated 
result of the personality which he evolved in his last 
life upon the planet, and the next personality which he 
will represent in his next visit upon this globe, is 
evolved by him during his present life. 

The development of a plant reaches its climax in the 
development of the seed; the development of the animal 
body reaches its climax in the capacity to reproduce its 
form, but the intellectual and spiritual development of 
a man goes on long after he has acquired the power 
of reproduction, and it may not have reached its climax 
when the physical form is on the downward path, and 
ceases to live. The condition of the physical body 
undoubtedly furnish facilities for the development of 
character in the same sense as a good soil will furnish 
facilities for the growth of a tree ; but the best soil can- 
not transform a thistle into a rose-bush, and the son of 
a good and intellectual man may be a villain or a 
dunce. 

As the primordial essence proceeds to manifest itself 
in forms, it descends from the universal condition to 
general, special, and finally individual states. As it 
ascends again to the formless, the scale is reversed, and 
the individual units expand, to mingle again with the 
whole. Life on the lowest planes manifests itself in an 
undifferentiated condition; air has no strictly defined 
shape; one drop of water in the ocean shares an exis- 
tence common to all other drops; one piece of clay is 



110 MAGIC. 

essentially the same as another. In the vegetable and 
animal kingdom the universal principle of life manifests 
itself in individual forms; still there is little difference 
between individual plants, trees, animals, and men be- 
longing to the same species, and the peculiar attributes 
which distinguish one individual form from another cease 
to exist when the form disappears. That which essential- 
ly distinguishes one individual from another is independ- 
ent of form. Distinctions of form disappear after the 
forms have dissolved; distinctions of character remain. 
Those attributes which raise their possessors eminently 
above the common level begin at a state where external 
appearances cease to be of great consequence. Socrates 
was deformed and yet a great genius; the size of Na- 
poleon's body was not at all in proportion with the great- 
ness of his intellect. Spirituality rises above the grave 
of the form, and the influence of great minds often grows 
stronger after the bodies that served them have turned to 
dust. Strong minds exert a power far beyond their 
physical form while they live; that power remains what 
it is when they die. They do not die when the form 
disappears. 

All characters may become reincarnated or reim- 
bodied after they have left the form, but if an individ- 
ual has no specific character of its own the common 
character belonging to its species or class will be all 
that, after leaving the old body, can enter the new. If 
an individual has developed a specific character of its 
own, that distinguishes it from its fellows, that individ- 
ual character will individually survive the dissolution 
of its form, because the law that applies to the whole, 
or to the class, will also apply to the part. A drop of 
water mixed in a body of water will become dispersed 
in the mass, it may be evaporated and condensed again, 
but it will never again be the same drop; but if a 
drop of some ethereal oil is mixed with the water, and 
the whole is evaporated in a retort, it will, after being 
condensed, form again the same individual drop in the 
mass. A character may lose its individuality during 
life and sink to the common level, but if it has estab- 
lished a distinction from others, its individuality will 



LIFE. Ill 

survive the death of the form. To build up a character 
an individual form is required ; to build up an individual 
form a character must exist. 

If we wish to produce a form we must first decide 
upon its character. A sculptor who would aimlessly 
cut a stone, without making up his mind as to what 
form he desired to produce, would not accomplish any- 
thing great. The form is a temple of learning for the 
character, in which the latter gains experience by pass- 
ing through the struggles of life. The harder the strug- 
gle the faster may the character of the individual become 
developed; an easy life may increase the size of the 
form, but leave the character weak ; a hard struggle may 
weaken the form, but strengthens the spirit. 

If we wish to make a new form out of old clay, we 
must first of all determine what that form shall be which 
we are about to create. The clay is passive, we may 
mould it into a thing of beauty or make it to represent 
something vile. If we wish to change our character for 
the better during our life, we must first of all learn to 
know a higher purpose of life, and reach up for a higher 
ideal, to be realised within our own self. After this 
nothing else needs to be done but to keep away every- 
thing that will prevent this ideal to realise itself in us. 
If we only protect it in its work, it will accomplish that 
work alone and without our active co-operation. We 
need not run after, catch, invent, create or manufacture 
our ideal, we only need to let that which already exists 
become a reality in us. We cannot even grow a cabbage ; 
we can only prepare the conditions under which a cab- 
bage can grow. We cannot grow an ideal in us ; the ideal 
grows itself, if we furnish the soil, and that soil is our 
life. 

If our soul is to expand its consciousness beyond the 
narrow limits of this world and realise the glory of an 
universal existence, then must we let a high and uni- 
versal ideal realise itself in us. Dreaming and talking 
of some ideal is to no purpose, we must let it nourish 
itself by our life. Wisdom and power, Love and Truth, 
Justice and Knowledge, are no objects for dreaming 
or for scientific research; they must become our life 



112 MAGIC 

and nourish us by our living in harmony with these 
universal principles, otherwise we cannot rise above the 
limitation of form, which is the cause of the delusion 
of separation and personality. From the illusion of 
separatedness caused by the realisation of form arises 
this delusion of self. From this delusion arise innumer- 
able others. From the sense of self arises the love of 
self, the desire for continuance of personality, greed, 
avarice, envy, jealousy, fear, doubt and sorrow, pain and 
death, and the whole range of sufferings which render 
life miserable and afford no permanent happiness. If a 
person is miserable and can find no happiness in him- 
self, the surest and quickest way for him to be contented 
is to forget his own personality. 

A person living in a continual state of isolation of 
the heart, cares for nothing but for his own personality. 
He passes away his life in dreaming of that which he 
does not possess, and thus he loses his spiritual substance 
and power, becoming himself like a vapory dream. 

Isolation on the physical plane produces starvation. 
He who is not nourished by the spirit of universal love 
starves his soul. An organism upon a low scale of 
existence, a stone, endures isolation; a scrub pine may 
live in a place where no higher plant can exist. An 
idiot may live alone in a cave and not trouble himself, 
because he has no spiritual aspirations requiring nourish- 
ment; but one who desires to attain life and strength 
in the spirit, must be nourished by that spirit, whose 
name is universal spiritual love. 

As on the physical plane, so on the astral plane, 
isolation produces starvation. A desire locked up in 
the heart feeds on the life of him who harbours it; 
stored up anger seeks for some object upon which to 
spend itself; passions are never contented, they always 
clamour for more. The forces of the astral plane are 
conscious, even if not intelligent; they refuse to be 
"killed out," they cry for life, and follow the currents 
of life's attractions. The astral soul of a drunkard will 
be attracted to drunkards; the astral spook of the lewd 
seek enjoyment in a brothel through the organs of 
another; the ghost of the miser is hovering over his 



LIFE. 113 

buried treasures until the force which put him there is 
exhausted. There are spooks, ghosts, vampires, incubi, 
succubi, and elementals. of various kinds, all thirsting 
for life. 

An isolated desire does not die, but grows into a 
passion; passions grow stronger at one's expense by 
being imprisoned. Accumulated energy cannot be an- 
nihilated, it must be transferred to other forms, or be 
transformed into other modes of motion; it cannot re- 
main for ever inactive. It is useless to attempt to resist 
a passion which one cannot control. If its accumulating 
energy is not led into other channels it will grow until it 
becomes stronger than reason. To control it, it should 
be led into another and higher channel. Thus a love 
for something vulgar may be changed by turning it into 
a love for something high, and vice may be turned into 
virtue by changing its aim. Passion is blind, it goes 
where it is led to, and requires reason to guide it. Love 
for a form disappears with the death of the form, or 
soon after; love of character remains even after the 
form in which that character was embodied ceased to 
exist. 

The ancients said that Nature suffers no vacuum. We 
cannot destroy or annihilate a passion. If one passion 
is driven away another will take its place. We should 
therefore not attempt to destroy the low, but displace 
the low by the high; vice by virtue, and superstition 
by knowledge. 

There are some persons who live in perfect isolation 
on the intellectual plane. They are such whose 
thoughts are entirely absorbed by intellectual specula- 
tion, having no time or inclination to attend to the 
claims of their character. They feed their brains while 
their hearts are made to starve. They live in dreams 
and scientific illusions, in the smoke of the specula- 
tions arising from their vapoury brains. They are like 
misers, filling the mind with what they believe to be 
immortal treasures, consisting of collections of theories, 
dogmas, hypotheses, suppositions, inferences, and sophis- 
try, while they have no room for the development of 
spirituality or the divine knowledge of self. This class 



114 MAGIC. 

is constituted of the very learned, the great dogmatists, 
rationalists, material philosophers, and "sceptical" scien- 
tists of our age, with overgrown brains and petrified 
hearts. They argue about immortality or deny its exis- 
tence, insead of seeking to attain it ; they sometimes be- 
come criminals for the sake of gratifying their scientific 
curiosity. Their astral corpses will continue to exist for 
a while after the death of the body, until their life is 
exhausted, and having attained no spirituality during 
terrestrial life, they will, after their borrowed treasures 
have departed, be spiritual idiots. 

There exists no isolation on the spiritual plane, nor 
can we speak of isolation in God; for if God is self- 
existent, self-conscious, self-knowing, and self-sufficient, 
his self, his existence, his knowledge encloses the All 
with all of his creatures. Well may he who has gained 
the knowledge of his own divine self be satisfied to 
live in a tomb ; for what other company should be desired 
by one who enjoys the presence of God; what comfort 
should be given to one who lives in divine peace; what 
could be offered to one who possesses the All ? 

Life itself never perishes ; only the forms perish, if 
life ceases to manifest itself in them. 

Life is universally present in nature, it is contained in 
every particle of matter, and only when the last particle 
of life has departed the form ceases to exist. Life in 
a stone does not appear to exist, and yet without life 
there would be no cohesion of its atoms. If the life- 
principle were extracted from a mineral its form would 
be annihilated. A seed taken from the tomb of an 
Egyptian mummy began to germinate and grow after 
it was planted in the earth, having kept its life-principle 
during a sleep of many centuries. If the activity of 
animal life could be correspondingly arrested, an animal 
or a man might prolong individual existence to an in- 
definite period. Stones may live from the beginning 
of a Manvantara unto its end* ; some forms reach a very 

* If the life of a person oould be suspended by arresting its activity 
for some years (as has been actually done in the well-known instances 
of buried fakirs), we might preserve all our great statesmen and 
politicians for ages, and wake them up only on occasions when their 
advice would be required ? ? ? 



LIFE. 115 

old age, but if the life-impulse is once given it is 
difficult to arrest it without destroying the form. 

Life may be transferred from one form upon another, 
and the power by which it may be transferred is the 
power of Love, because Love, Will and Life are essen- 
tially tthe same power, or different aspects of one, in the 
same sense as heat and light are modifications of motion. 
The power of hate may kill, and the power of love has 
been known to call the apparently dead back to life. 
Spiritual Love is Life, a spiritual power more powerful 
than all the drugs of the Pharmacopoeia. A person 
may actually give his life to another and die himself, 
so that another may live. This transfer can be made 
and sick persons restored to health, by the power of love. 

The fountain of this universal love is also the source 
of the life of all things; it is divine self-conscious- 
ness, the power by which God recognises himself in 
everything; in other words, it is divine wisdom, the 
Light.f It is everywhere present, and manifests itself 
in every form capable to correspond to its living vibra- 
tions. It cannot be found by vivisection nor by means 
of the microscope, telescope, or chemical analysis, and 
modern science knows nothing about it. Nevertheless 
it is a principle or power, in and through which we all 
live and have our being, and if it were withdrawn from 
us for one moment, we would be immediately annihilated. 

To be blind to the universal presence of this Light is 
to be blind to the fact that grasses and trees, men and 
animals, live and grow, and that every form strives to 
be initiated into a higher degree according to the law of 
evolution. The building of the "Temple of Solomon" 
goes on unceasingly. Invisibly act the elements of nature, 
the master builders of the universe, and no sound of 
a hammer is heard. Life inhabits a form, and when the 
form is decayed it gathers the elements and builds itself 
a new house. # A rock, exposed to the action of wind 
and rain, begins to decay on its surface, the elements 
gather again and appear in a new form. Minute plants 
and mosses grow on the surface, living and dying and 

«,* V1 n £ lm waB the llfe » and the life was the n S ht of all mei."- 
ot. John 1. 4. 

"He is the light In all luminous things. He is the Knower, the 
Knowledge, and the object of Knowledge." — Bhagavad Gita xiil 17 



116 MAGIC. 

being reborn, until the soil accumulates and higher forms 
come into existence. Centuries may pass away before 
this part of the work is completed; but finally grasses 
will grow, and the life that was formally dormant in a 
rock now manifests itself in forms capable to enter the 
animal kingdom. A worm eats a plant, and the life of 
the plant becomes active and conscious in a worm; a 
bird eats the worm, and the life that was chained to a 
form crawling in darkness and filth, now partakes of the 
joys of an inhabitant of the air. At each step on the 
ladder of progression life acquires new means to mani- 
fest its activity, and the death of its previous form en- 
ables it to step into a higher one. But a time arrives in 
the process of its evolution when its activity becomes so 
high and its sphere so expanded, that no physical organ- 
ism, no form of which we can conceive, will be able to 
serve as an instrument in which its attributes could find 
an appropriate expression. Then will the mortal frame be 
too insignificant to serve the immortal genius, and the' 
freed Eagle will arise from the form. 

Forms are nothing but symbols of life, and the higher 
the life expresses itself the higher will be the form. An 
acorn is an insignificant thing compared with the oak, 
but it has a character, and through the magic action of 
life it may develop into an oak. The germ of its indi- 
vidual life is incarnated in the acorn, and forms the 
point of attraction for the universal principle of life. 
Its character is already formed, and if it grows it can 
become nothing else but an oak. Buried in the earth 
it grows and developes from a lower into a higher state 
through the influence of the highest, because the principle 
of life is present in it. But however great its potency 
for growth may be, still it cannot germinate without the 
life-giving influence of the universal fountain of life 
reaching it through the power of the sun, and the sun 
could not make it grow unless the same principle of life 
were contained within the germ. 

The rays of the sun penetrate from their airy regions 
to the earth; their light cannot enter the solid earth, 
which protects the tender seed of a plant from the fiery 
rays, whose activity would destroy its inherent vitality. 



LIFE. 117 

But the seed is touched by the heat that radiates into 
the earth, and a special mode of life manifests itself in 
the seed. The seed begins to sprout, and the germ 
struggles towards the source of the life-giving influence, 
and strives towards the light. The roots have no desire 
for light, they only crave for nutriment, which they find 
in the dark caverns of matter. They penetrate deeper 
into the earth, and may even absorb the activity of the 
higher parts of the plant. But if these parts belong 
to a species whose character it is to grow towards the 
light, its nobler portions will enter its sphere, and ulti- 
mately bear flowers and fruits. 

The soul of man being buried in matter, feels the 
life-giving influence of the supreme spiritual sun, while 
at the same time it is attracted by matter. If man's 
whole attention is attracted to the claims of his body, 
if all his aspirations and desires are directed to satisfy 
the desires of his "self," he will himself remain a thing 
of earth, incapable to become conscious of the existence 
of Light. But if he strives for Light and opens his 
soul to its divine influence, he will enter its sphere and 
become conscious of its existence. 

The true Elixir of Life can only be found at the 
sternal fountain of life. It springs from the seventh 
principle, manifesting itself as spiritual power in the 
sixth and shedding its light down into the fifth, illu- 
minating the mind. In the fifth it is manifest as the 
intellectual power in man, radiating down into the fourth 
it creates desires, by calling forth instincts in the lower 
triad, and thereby enabling the forms to draw the ele- 
ments which they need from the storehouse of nature. 
[t for ever calls men to life by the voice of truth, whose 
echo is the power of intuition crying in the wilderness 
of our hearts, baptising the souls with the water of 
truth, and pointing out to them the true path to the 
realisation of their own immortality. 




CHAPTER V, 

HARMONY. 

"Let no one enter here who is not well versed In mathematics amd 
music." — Pythagoras. 

' <r PO listen to the music of the spheres" is a poetical 
1 expression, but it expresses a great truth; be- 
•' cause the Universe is filled with harmony, and 
a soul who is in full harmony with the soul of the uni- 
verse may listen to that music and understand it. The 
world as well as man resembles musical instruments, in 
which every string should be in perfect order, so that 
no discordant notes may be sounded. We may look 
upon matter on the physical plane as a state of low 
vibration and upon spirit as the highest vibration of 
life, and between the two poles are the intermediary 
states constituting the grand octave called Man. 

Plato is said to have written over the door of his 
academy: "Let no one enter here, unless he is versed 
in mathematics/' and Pythagoras demanded of his dis- 
ciples an additional "knowledge of music"; meaning the 
capacity to keep their soul attuned to the harmonies 
of the divine law of being, so as to be able to realise 
the beauty of truth; for without such an elevation of 
soul and without spirituality, all desire for a knowledge 
of that which transcends the realm of the sensual is 
merely an outcome of vanity, an insane craving for 
gratifying curiosity, which defeats its own end; be- 
cause the more one seeks to examine objectively the 
One which includes the All, the more does he recede 
from it and separate himself from the realisation of that 

118 



HARMONY. 119 

truth which is one, eternal, omnipresent and infinite. 
It is not the personality of man that can grasp the 
impersonal. If man wants to know God, he must die 
to himself, and enter God's nature; which means that 
he must overcome the disharmony caused by the de- 
lusion of division, separation and self, and again realise 
the unity of the whole. 

The foundation of nature is Unity. God is only One. 
He is the Law, and requires no "law-giver" ; being Him- 
self omnipresent within the All of His nature ; self-suffi- 
cient, self-existent and absolute. The Law is every- 
where, and everything exists in the Law, and without 
the law of existence no existence is to be found. 

But as by the act of creation and subsequent evolution 
a variety of forms comes into existence, with innumer- 
able beings capable to will, and to think, and to use the 
law contrary to divine wisdom, many disharmonies are 
caused in what ought to be a harmonious whole. 

Thus the law is still the same; but its action may be 
misapplied and its use perverted. It is still the founda- 
tion of every individual being, and the sooner each 
individual will become able to recognise the highest and 
fundamental law of its own nature, which is identical 
with the law that rules the All, the sooner will the original 
harmony be restored. 

Man is himself an outcome of the action of law, and 
that law is in him. It is the centre and fountain of his 
own being; he is an expression of it, and it is his true 
self. He is himself the law, and will recognise himself 
as the law when he learns to know his true self. All 
the elements in his nature which do not recognise this 
one universal law, and act in accordance with it, do not 
belong to man's divine nature ; they are not his real self, 
but produce the disharmony which exists in his world. 
Only when all the inhabitants of his kingdom will bow 
before the superiority of that law, will there be perfect 
harmony. 

In every department of nature every effect depends on 
a corresponding cause, and every cause will produce a 
certain effect according to the conditions in which it be- 
comes manifest. If we knew the causes we could easily 



120 MAGIC. 

calculate their effects. Each thought, each word, each 
act creates a cause, which acts directly on the plane to 
which it belongs, creating there new causes which react 
again upon the other planes. A motive or thought which 
finds no expression in an act will have no direct result on 
the physical plane, but it may cause great emotions in the 
sphere of mind, and these may again react on the physical 
plane. The best intention will produce no visible effect 
unless it is put into execution ; but intentions produce cer- 
tain mental states, that may be productive of actions at 
some time in the future. The performance of an act will 
have an effect, no matter whether it was premeditated or 
not, but an act without a motive will not directly affect the 
planes of thought. Such an act imposes no moral respon- 
sibility upon the performer, but it will, nevertheless, have 
its effects on the physical plane that may react upon 
the mind. 

From the causes created on the physical, astral, and 
spiritual planes innumerable combinations of effects come 
into existence, creating new causes, that are again fol- 
lowed by effects, and every force that is put into action on 
either plane continues to act until it is exhausted by trans- 
formations into other modes of action, when its vibra- 
tions will be changed into others, and the previous effects 
will cease to exist. 

By the threefold action of that law as thought, will and 
performance on the physical, emotional, intellectual and 
spiritual planes a great many conditions ensue which give 
rise to endless modifications and varieties, and again 
produce innumerable secondary causes, which again pro- 
duce effects, and at last the actions of the law of Karma 
will become so complicated, that it is impossible to follow 
it into its details. 

The law of Karma is the law of justice for the purpose 
of restoring harmony ; it includes retribution in the shape 
of "punishment" and "reward." It knows nothing of 
"revenge," neither does it recognise any personal merits ; 
it is the Law itself, and acts according to its own nature 
and not in accordance to this or that consideration. It is 
the law according to which the sum of the causes created 
by one individual in one incarnation will produce certain 



HARMONY. 121 

effects in his next incarnation, and cause him to either 
enjoy or suffer that which he has either willingly, and 
with determination, or ignorantly created himself. Every 
being in nature having attained individuality has its own 
individual Karma, determining the course of its future 
career ; each of the individual elements in the constitution 
of man has its own Karma, and man being identified with 
his nature, partakes of the Karma, of the principles which 
constitute his own nature ; but as God is superior to nature 
and therefore not subject to it, so the individual man who 
conquers his nature, rises above it, and becoming one with 
the law, becomes free of the Karma affecting his terres- 
trial nature. "Giving his nature away," and sacrificing 
himself wholly to the law of divine being, he also "for- 
gives" his sins. 

The discords in nature, caused by the action of the 
deluded self-will and the perverted desires of individual 
entities, cannot cease in any other way than by the restor- 
ation of the unity of the individual will with the w r ill of 
the fundamental law of the whole. This unity exists ; it 
does not need to be created by man; he is only required 
to recognise it. If he recognises it practically, it will be- 
come realised in him. Personal man cannot recognise 
himself as being this Unity, because he is divided against 
himself; his "self" is an illusion, and an illusion cannot 
become a realisation of truth. If the truth becomes real- 
ized, the illusion ceases to be. 

All numbers are the outcome of one ; in all numbers 
the one is contained, and without the one at the bottom 
no numbers could come into existence. This number one 
remains always the same; whether divided or multiplied 
by itself, it does not change. All mathematics is based 
upon the faith into the immutability of number one. We 
have no positive proof that it never changes ; our knowl- 
edge about it is only negative; because it has never been 
known to change. In the same way our intellectual 
knowledge of God is only negative ; we cannot prove his 
eternal immutability scientifically; we only believe in it; 
the only proof we have of it is, that our own inner self- 
consciousness, if we have once attained it, remains ever 



122 MAGIC. 

the same. This proof is sufficient for the wise; but it 
will go for nought with the fool. 

The foundation of nature is one; but the numbers of 
its manifestation appear to be infinite. Nevertheless, all 
things in nature are related to each other, owing to their 
relation to the one, which is at the bottom of their exist- 
ence. 

Everything has its number, measure, and weight, and 
there is nothing in nature which is not ruled by mathe- 
matical laws. Suns and stars have their periodical rev- 
olutions. The molecules of bodies combine in certain 
proportions, known to chemistry, and in all events on the 
physical plane as well as in the realm of the emotions a 
certain regularity and periodicity has been observed. 
There are regular hours for the appearance of day and 
night, fixed intervals for spring and summer, autumn and 
winter, for ebbs and tides in the ocean and in the waters 
constituting the soul. The physiological and anatomical 
changes in animal forms occur at fixed periods, and even 
the events of life take place according to certain occult 
laws ; because, although man's will seems to be free, 
nevertheless his actions are controlled by certain cir- 
cumstances, and even the comparative freedom of his will 
is a result of the action of the law of his evolution. 

The followers of Pythagoras believed every process in 
nature to be regulated by certain numbers, which are as 
follows : 



3 


9 


15 


45 


4 


16 


34 


136 


5 


25 


65 


325 


6 


36 


111 


666 


7 


49 


175 


1225 


8 


64 


260 


2080 


9 


81 


369 


3321 



This table represents a succession of numbers, which 
are obtained by the construction of Tetragrams or magic 
squares, and it was believed that by the use of these 
numbers every effect could be calculated if the original 
number referring to the cause were known. If everything 
has a certain number of vibrations, and if these vibra- 



HARMONY. 



123 



tions increase or diminish at a certain ratio and in regular 
periods, a knowledge of these numbers will enable us to 
predict a future event.* 

Periodicity is a manifestation of universal law, and 
an attention to it may lead to some important discoveries. 
Its actions have long ago been known to exist in the 
vibrations producing light and sound, and it has recently 
been recognised in chemistry by experiments tending to 
prove that all so-called simple elements are only various 
states of vibrations of one primordial element, manifest- 
ing itself in seven principal modes of action, each of 
which to be sub-divided into seven again. The difference 
which exists between so-called single substances is, there- 

* The magic squares of odd numbers are found as described below: 
by writing down the numbers of their squares in regular succession, 
cutting out their "heart" and transposing the numbers that are left to 
their opposite places. The following is the process in forming the 
magic square of the number III. The square of 3 is 9: 




We see here the numbers 1, 3, 7, 9, left on the outside of the 
square. If they are inserted in a certain order into the blank spaces 
at the opposite sides of the square, the following figure will be the 
result: 




These numbers, if added in any column of three, will always pro- 
duce 15. 

The following will make still clearer the order in which the 
numbers are to be Inserted, with the figure drawn in an upright 
position: 



124 



MAGIC 



fore, no difference of substance or matter, but only a dif- 
ference of the function of matter or in the ratio of its 
atomic vibration. 

This periodicity is also known to exist in the macro- 
cosm of the universe; the tide of civilisation rises and 
sinks according to certain laws, and ages of spiritual 
ignorance are followed by eras of spiritual enlightenment ; 



1 


« 






u 


9 


2 




3 


5 


7 


ff 


a 


/ 











'< 





According to this principle all the other magic squares of odd num- 
bers are made. 

The following is the tetragram of the number seven: 

VIL 



22 


ja 


/6 


M 


/o 


3$ 


L 


j 


23 


4S 


/7 


&2 


// 


20 


30 


e 


26 


te> 


/8 


36 


/2 


/3 


3/ 


7 


25 


£2 


/& 


37 


38 


/& 


32 


/ 


26 


46 


20 


2/ 


39 


<? 


33 


2 


27 


A5 


66 


/s 


60 


9 


36 


S 


28 



Each column added together produces 175. 



HARMONY. 
IX. 



\L25 



37 




26 




27 




73 




5 




38 




36 




22 




76 




67 




36 




37 




23 




75 




68 




AT? 




32 




26 


: 


57 




70 




7*7 




33 


- 


25 




58 




56 




72 




36. 




67 




66 




57 




7(3 




35 




68 




66 




52 




66 




77 




69 




67 




53 




65 



N. B. — The numbers omitted here may be inserted by the student. 

The construction of tetragrams of even numbers is more complicated 
but the following examples will show the principles after which they 
are constructed: 

VI. 



6 7 32 ) 




<3) 


(43) 


(35) 


r 


(7) 11 




(27) 


(28) 


8 


'(30> 


( 24 ) ( 14 ) 




,16 


15 


(23) 


|(19) 


(13) (20) 




[ 22 


21 


(17) 


|(18j 


( 25 ) 29 




(10) 


(9) 


26 


< 12 ); 


36 < 5 ) 




(33) 

Summa 


(4) 
= 111. 


(2) 


w 






VIII. 






8 (58) 


(62) 


(4) 


(5) 


(59) 


(63) ; 


(9) 15 


(51) 


(53) 


(52) 


(54) 


10 ( 16 ) 


( 48 ) ( 18 ) 


22 


(44) 


(45) 


19 


(23) (41) 


( 25 ) ( 39 ) 


(35) 


29 


28 


(38) 


(34) (32) 


( 33 ) ( 31 ) 


(27) 


37 


36 


(30) 


(26) (40) 


( 24 ) ( 42 ) 


46 


(20) 


(21) 


43 


( 47 ) ( 17 ) 


( 49 ) 55 


(11) 


(13) 


(12) 


(14) 


50 ( §6 ) 


64 (2) 


(6) 


(60) 

Summa 


(61) 
= 260. 


(3) 


(7) 57 



Every person has a certain number that expresses his character, and 
If we know that number, we may, by the use of the magic squares, 
calculate certain periodical changes in his mental and emotional 
states, which induce him to make certain changes in his outward 
conditions, and in this way calculate approximately the time when some 
important changes may take place in his career. 



126 MAGIC. 

upon the Kali Yuga follows the Saty Yuga (the era of 
wisdom), as sure as day follows the night.* 

The number Seven represents the scale of nature, it is 
represented in all departments of nature, from the radiant 
sun, whose light is broken by a dewdrop into the seven 
colours of the rainbow, down to the snowflake crystallis- 
ing in six-pointed stars around the invisible centre. The 
law of seven has been found to rule in the development 
and growth of vegetable and animal organisms, in the 
constitution of the universe, and in the constitution of 
Man. Seven is the rule by which the totality of existence 
is measured, but Five is the number of Harmony. If 
the fifth note in the musical scale is in accord 
with the first and the third, harmony will be the result. 
There are other accords which are harmonious, but the 
most perfect accord is caused by the harmony of the first, 
the third, and the fifth. Two sounds may be harmonious, 
but to attain a perfect accord a third one is required. The 
same law rules in the constitution of Man. If his body 
(his first principle) is in accord with his instincts (the 
third), he experiences pleasant sensations, but full har- 
mony and happiness is only attained when his fifth prin- 
ciple (his intelligence) fully assents in the union of the 
first and the third. Other parallels may be drawn be- 
tween the musical scale and the scale of principles in 
man, and it will be found that both have their accords in 
moll and in dur that correspond to each other. Each 
man's life is a symphony, in which either harmonious or 
discordant tunes may prevail. 

The power by which harmony is produced is the power 
of Love. Love produces union and harmony, hate causes 
dissension and discord. Love is the power of mutual 
recognition; recognition is a manifestation of conscious- 
ness, consciousness is a manifestation of life. Life, Love, 
Consciousness, Harmony, are essentially one. Love is 
the power by which a being existing in one form recog- 
nises itself in the form of another being. Why do some 

♦This periodicity is stated to be as follows: 

Satya Yuga = 4,800 divine years. 

Treta Yuga = 8,600 

Dwapara Yuga =2,400 " 

Kali Yuga =1,200 

Each divine year being equal to 360 years of mortal men. Se© 
H. P. Blavatsky: "Theosophical Glossary." 



HARMONY. (127 

notes, if sounded together, produce harmony, if not on 
account of the similarity of the elements that compose 
them coming to the consciousness of our own mind? 
Mutual recognition among friends causes joy, and joy 
means harmony, happiness, and content. 

If two or more notes of exactly the same kind are 
sounded together, they produce neither harmony nor 
discord, they simply increase their own strength. They 
are already one, in form and in spirit; but if different 
notes are struck, each containing an element also con- 
tained in the other, each sees its own counterpart repre- 
sented in the mirror held by the other, and this recogni- 
tion is joy. If we listen to beautiful music the air seems 
rilled with life. If the principle of harmony exists within 
ourselves we recognise it in music; it becomes alive in 
our soul. A discordant being may listen to the most 
beautiful music and will experience no pleasure because 
there is no harmony within his own soul. 

If a principle becomes conscious of its own existence 
in another form and recognises its beauty in that form in 
its purity, and unalloyed by any adulteration, perfect 
harmony is the result. If two or more things contain 
the same element, these elements are justly adapted to 
each other, and seek to unite, because they are constituted 
alike, they vibrate together as one. This tendency to 
unite is Attraction, which manifests itself on all planes of 
existence. The planets are attracted to the sun and to 
each other, because they all contain the same elements, 
seeking to reunite, and the power of gravitation is nothing 
else but the power exercised by love. Man is attracted to 
woman and woman to man, because if they realise in each 
other the presence of the elements of their own ideal, they 
will love each other and be fully contented. Man and 
woman can only truly love each other if they are both 
attracted by the same ideal. This ideal may be high or 
low, but the higher it is the more permanent will it be, 
and the greater will be their mutual happiness. 

Original man was a Unity ; an ethereal being, in whom 
will and thought were one. Being misled by the allure- 
ments of sensual existence he began to dream, and while 
he dreamed he forgot his own divine nature and became 



128 MAGIC. 

a worm of the earth. When he opened his eyes, he found 
the woman before him. He, the original unity, had be- 
come divided in two; which means that his will and his 
reason had become divided; they were no longer 
in harmony with each other and no longer in har- 
mony with the law. Man represents the imagination, 
woman the will. If they had both separated themselves 
from the law as they did from each other, woman would 
have no intelligence and man would have no will; but 
fortunately some of the original nature that constituted 
original man remained with them ; they still are both to a 
certain extent embodiments of the law, and by entering 
again into harmony with the law, will and intelligence 
will become united in wisdom; the heart one with the 
head ; the true man and the true woman one being. This 
is .the celestial marriage of the soul with the spirit, of 
beauty with strength, of which all external marriages 
are at best symbols but usually caricatures. 

Mankind is only one, but it appears in many millions 
of various masks. This mask is the personality of each 
man, the instrument through which his humanity acts, 
and which is full of imperfections. He, in whom human- 
ity has become conscious, sees in every man and woman 
not only his brother or sister, but his own self. A person 
who injures another, injures himself, for each man con- 
stitutes a power which acts upon all the elements con- 
stituting humanity and the good or evil he does will re- 
turn to himself ; because whatever takes place in human- 
ity, takes place within his own nature ; for his true nature 
is that of humanity and the body of humanity belongs to 
it as a whole. 

Love is self-recognition. You cannot love a thing or 
recognise yourself in it, if you are not related to it. You 
cannot love humanity if you have not the principle of 
humanity alive in you ; you cannot love God and still 
remain Mr. Smith or Mrs. Jones ; only God can love 
God. To love God you must outgrow yourself and be- 
come truly divine. He who claims to love God without 
having any spiritual knowledge of him is a hypocrite or 
a fool. 

Love is self-knowledge, God. It is a spiritual, self- 



HARMONY. 129 

existent, and self -sufficient principle, requiring for its 
own being only its own self; but without some object it 
cannot become manifest, and the quality of its manifesta- 
tion depends on the quality of that object. A person in 
love with himself loves a nothing. Love in the high acts 
high, in the degraded, low. The more universal the object, 
the more will the power of love in a person expand the 
mind ; but the mind, to be so expanded, must be strong, a 
weak mind has no power. 

Love, to be strong, must be pure, intelligent, and un- 
alloyed with selfish considerations. If we love a thing 
on account of the use we can make of it, we do not in 
reality love that thing, but ourselves. Pure love has only 
the well-being of its object in view, it does not calculate 
profits, and is not afraid of disadvantages that may grow 
out of its love. The intellect calculates, but love is its 
own law. 

Impure love is weak and does not enter into its object; 
it may cause a ruffle on the soul of another, but does not 
penetrate to the center. Pure love penetrates and cannot 
be resisted. The most potent love potion a person can 
give to another is to love that person without any selfish 
object in view. 

If you wish to progress on the road to perfection, take 
lessons in love. Learn to love the highest, and you will 
be attracted by it. Love in every man not the person, but 
his humanity. If you despise another you despise your 
own self, because he who prominently notices the faults 
of another has the elements of those faults in himself. A 
vain person is repulsed by the vanity of another, a liar 
expects from others the truth, a thief does not wish to 
have his own property taken away. 

Each man is a mirror in which every other man may 
see his own image reflected, either as he is or as he may 
become in the future, for in every human soul exist the 
same elements, although in different states of develop- 
ment, and their development often depends on external 
conditions over which man has but little control. 

Love is the most necessary element for the continuance 
of life; there is no life without love, and if man were to 
cease to love life he would cease to live. A love for a 



130 MAGIC. 

higher life will lead men to a higher condition, a love for 
a lower state will drag them down to the low. It often 
happens that if a person's love for a high ideal does not 
meet the object which it desires, it transfers its love upon 
something that is low. Old females without any offspring 
often transfer their parental affection upon some favour- 
ite cat or dog, and there are men who buy the semblance 
of love when no genuine love can be had. 

Whenever a lower vibration is not entirely out of 
harmony with a higher one, the higher vibration acceler- 
ates the action of the lower one and brings it up to its 
own level, in the same manner as a bar of iron, surround- 
ed by an insulated electric wire, may have electricity in- 
duced in it, and through a long-continued and powerful 
action of the higher vibrations upon the lower ones, even 
the involuntary actions of the body, such as the move- 
ments of the heart, may become subject to individual will. 
Two strings of a musical instrument which sound not 
entirely out of harmony, by being sounded together for a 
certain length of time, at last become harmonious ; a man 
living in more refined society, which is not too far above 
his moral or intellectual level, will become more refined, 
servants will ape their masters, and animals take some of 
the lower characteristics of those that attend to them, 
and friends or married couples being continually in each 
other's company may finally resemble each other to a cer- 
tain extent. 

If the respective rates of the vibrations of two sub- 
stances are entirely out of harmony, they may repel each 
other, and abnormal activity or excitement follows. The 
animal body, for instance, can be exposed without danger 
to a comparatively high degree of heat, if the temperature 
is gradually raised; while an even lower degree of heat 
may be very injurious if applied suddenly. It is not with- 
out reasons that the oculist abstains from Alcohol and 
from animal food. 

"What may be one man's food, will be another man's 
poison ;" in the sphere of matter as well as in the sphere 
of the emotions. Strong constitutions can bear strong 
food, weak minds will get frightened at unwelcome 
truths. No man has ever become an Adept merely be- 



HARMONY. H31 

cause He livecl on vegetables ; a vegetable diet is, however, 
preferable to meat-eating for various reasons. Apart 
from the self-evident fact that it is entirely opposed to 
the divine law of justice that he who strives after the 
attainment of a higher state of existence should destroy 
animal life, or cause others to destroy it for the purpose 
of gratifying his appetite. 

Those who desire to become more spiritual and refined 
should avoid supplying their bodies with that which is 
gross; those who desire to master their passions should 
not feed them with substances in which the elements of 
such passions reside. 

A great variety of different kinds of food produces 
impurities of the blood; a struggle ensues between the 
different auras, and excitement, fever, and disease is the 
result. The same law explains the origin of venereal and 
cutaneous diseases, and in the astral plane, a great variety 
of emotions, called into existence within a short space of 
time, may render a person insane. 

If two forces of a character different from each other 
meet, disharmony will be the result. Everybody has his 
own peculiar emanations and auras and transmits them 
to others, so every one receives the magnetic auras of 
others or of the locality by which he is surrounded, and 
these emanations may be either wholesome or pestiferous ; 
men and women may either cure or poison each other by 
them, and it is therefore well to follow the advice which 
Gautama Buddha gave to his disciples, and eat and sleep 
alone. 

Many people are very careful to have their food well 
prepared, so that no unhealthy food enters the body; 
while at the same time they are very careless as to what 
thoughts enter their mind ; but the quality of the thoughts 
that dwell in the mind, and of the emotions which nourish 
the soul, is of far more importance than the quality of the 
food which enters the body The mind and the will of 
man, no less than his body, may be poisoned; the food 
which the mind requires comes from the highest planes of 
thought; the food for the soul from the light of divine 
wisdom. Only that which has descended from heaven 
can rise to heaven again. 



132 MAGIC. 

There is no such thing as "sin" in the usual acceptation 
of this term and there is no one to punish it. Our mis- 
takes are our teachers; our vices are often the basis of 
our virtues, our passions are the steps which furnish 
material for the steps that lead us to heaven. Vice and 
virtue are manifestations of one energy, which we may- 
employ according to the degree of our wisdom; but he 
who has no power for evil has also no power for good. 
We may spend the treasure which nature has lent us 
either for a high or for a low purpose, it concerns only 
ourselves ; but we cannot expend the same sum again 
after it has been expended. A purely animal life will 
produce happiness if the possessor is contented with it. 
If a person has no higher object in view than to eat and 
drink, sleep, and propagate his species, he may be thereby 
rendered happy ; there can be nothing wrong ; but he who 
desires to become an immortal being, must take care not 
to waste his strength. 

Only that which is pure can be harmonious. 

Singleness of purpose renders a motive pure, but a 
variety of purposes causes impurity. If a person devotes 
himself to a certain mode of life, because all his desires 
are directed towards that end, his motive will be pure; 
but if he has besides other objects in view, his motive 
will be impure, and may defeat his aim. 

The word "asceticism" is continually misunderstood. 
A man who lives in a convent, or as a hermit in the wil- 
derness, is not an "ascetic," if he has no desire for a life 
in the world; for it is no act of self-denial to avoid that 
which we do not want. "Asceticism" means discipline, 
and a person who is disgusted with the ways of the world 
undergoes a much more severe discipline, if he remains 
in the world, than if he runs away, and goes where he 
may enjoy his peace. The real ascetic is therefore he 
who lives in the midst of the society whose manners dis- 
please him, and whose tastes are not his own, and who, in 
spite of all the temptations by which he may be surround- 
ed, still maintains his integrity of character. Strength 
only grows by resistance. Our enemies are our friends, 
if we know how to use them. A hermit living in the 
woods, where he has no temptations, gains no strength. 



HARMONY. 133 

Isolation is only suitable for an Adept ; the Neophite must 
go throughout the ordeal of life. 

A tiger does not sin if he kills a man, he only follows 
the law of his nature. He who follows the dictates of 
his nature commits no crime. But what is virtue in an 
animal may become vice in a man; because he has two 
natures, an animal and a spiritual nature. If he knows 
his own higher nature, he will follow it, and for the pur- 
pose of obtaining knowledge of it he must sin and suffer 
the consequences. Real sin is the willful rejection of the 
manifestation of divine truth. 

The saintly Eckhart says: "God has made great 
sinners of those who were to become the performers of 
great works ;so that they could attain a superior wisdom by 
means of his love. If God found it necessary that I should 
have sinned and suffered for the purpose of gaining ex- 
perience, I do not wish that I had not sinned, nor do I 
regret having sinned; for thus his will is done on earth 
as it is in heaven. A truly honest man will also not wish 
that he should have no desire for sinning; because with- 
out the power to sin he would have no means to overcome 
it. There can be no victory without a battle, and no 
true knowledge of good without the experience of evil.' , 

Suffering is an absolutely necessary condition for man 
as long as he has not attained perfection. To believe in 
the presence of suffering is as necessary for his terrestrial 
nature. as it is necessary for his spiritual nature to realise 
the presence of God. There is no other Redeemer of 
Mankind except Self-knowledge attained by experience. 
If all the poverty in the world could be artificially abol- 
ished at once, men and women would perish in indolence. 
Nothing can be truly enjoyed which has not been gained 
by one's own exertions. If there were one teacher sup- 
posed to be infallible, whose dictates would be accepted by 
everybody, the whole world would be satisfied in believing 
his theories ; there would be no incitement for anyone to 
seek himself for the truth. If we support a lazy beggar 
in his idleness, we rob him of the opportunity to gain by 
experience that knowledge which he can rightfully claim. 

Metals are purified by fire, and the heart gains knowl- 
edge by suffering. The lower desires must starve to 



134 MAGIC. 

nourish the higher ; the animal passions must be crucified 
and die; but the angel of Love removes the stone from 
the sepulchre, and liberates the higher energies from the 
sphere of selfishness and darkness; and the resurrected 
virtues live and become active in a new world of light 
and harmony. 

If you wish to represent to your mind the process of 
spiritual purification, seek to understand that you are a 
world created by a dream, filled with the product of the 
imagination of nature, and thrown into disorder by the 
absence of the light of divine wisdom, which is the rec- 
ognition of divine law, the true inner self-consciousness, 
which you do not possess. You are comparable to an 
empty nothing, an evanescent soap-bubble, upon whose 
glittering surface various colours play ; but in which there 
is no true life and no substance as long as the truth has 
not become a living power in you. In this world as in a 
mirror the invisible image of the divine Adonai is forever 
reflected and his power is latent within you. If, by the 
strength of obedience and the knowledge which you have 
already received, you can subdue the turbulent elements 
in your world and restore order in Chaos by ceasing to 
give life and strength to your desires and dreams, then 
will the image of the Lord of All, whose presence is 
everywhere, become visible in yourself and his power 
awaken within you. 

In this principle will and thought and the law are as 
one without any division. If you know the law, it will 
lead you to unity and restoration of harmony ; the divine 
ideal will become realised within you, and as it becomes a 
reality in you, you will recognise it as being your own 
immortal self. 

Bones, muscles, nerves, &c, are the elements of the 
physical constitution of man ; illusions, delusions, dreams, 
theories, opinions, and dogmas are the inhabitants of his 
mind; truth, love, justice, purity, self-knowledge, free- 
dom, harmony, and happiness are the elements and at- 
tributes of his spiritual organism, and the more these 
principles manifest their universality in him, the more 
will he himself approach the divine state. 

To recognise the divinity in humanity is to become 



HARMONY. H35 

divine; to behold the realisation of the highest ideal 
within one's own soul is divine adoration; to desire not 
the possession of any creature, but to adore the Creator 
within them all, including oneself, is worship; to recog- 
nise and enjoy the harmonies of the universe manifested 
in nature is divine praise ; to let the unity of will, thought, 
and law be restored within one's soul is true meditation ; 
to rise above the illusion of self and sacrifice oneself to the 
God of All is true prayer; to realise the truth within 
one's own heart is to dispel the clouds of error; to be- 
come nothing oneself is to enter into that higher self- 
consciousness which constitutes man's divine state. 

There is not a single instance known in history in 
which true prayer has not been efficacious. If any man 
has not obtained that which he asked, it only proves that 
he did not know how to pray. True prayer does not 
consist in words, but in actions, and the gods help him 
who helps himself; but he who expects that the gods 
should do for him that which he ought to accomplish 
himself, does not know how to pray, and will be disap- 
pointed. Prayer means the rising up in our thoughts and 
aspirations to the highest ideal ; if we do not rise up to it, 
we do not pray. If we expect our highest ideal to come 
down to us, we expect an absurdity and impossibility. 

To attain the highest the spirit should be the master, 
the passions, the servants. A helpless cripple is the slave 
of his servant; a man who depends on ignorant servants 
to do work which he can do himself, has to submit to 
their whims and imperfections, and if he changes his 
servants, that does not change his position. A person 
who has vulgar desires and tastes becomes their servant ; 
they dictate to him, and he has to exert himself to attain 
the means to gratify their claims ; but he who has no 
ignoble desires to serve, is free. Having conquered the 
world of which he himself is the creator and which be- 
longs to him, his strife with the astral elements ceases. 
For him discord no longer exists, and resting with his 
heart at the centre, he is himself the sun illuminating his 
world and enjoys the harmonies which he created in his 
own divine nature. 



f 



CHAPTER VI. 
ILLUSIONS. 

"Reason dissipates the illusions and visionary interpretatioas of 
things, in which the imagination runs riot." — Dr. Caird. 

HP HE first power that meets us at the threshold of 
* sours dominion is the power of imagination: it is 
the plastic and creative power of the mind. Man 
is conscious of being able to receive ideas and to put 
them into forms. He lives not entirely in the objective 
world, but possesses an interior world of his own. It is 
in his power to be the sole autocrat in that world, the 
master of its creations and lord over all it contains. He 
may govern there by the supreme power of his will, and 
if ideas intrude, which have no legitimate right to exist 
in it, it is in his power either to drive them away or 
suffer them to remain and to grow. His reason is the 
supreme ruler in that world, its ministers are the emo- 
tions. If man's reason, misled by the treacherous advice 
of evil emotions, suffers evil ideas to grow, they may be- 
come powerful and dethrone reason. 

This interior world, like the outer world, is a world of 
its own. It is sometimes dark, sometimes illumined; its 
space and the things it contains are as real to its inhab- 
itants as the physical world is real to the physical senses ; 
its horizon may be either narrow or expanded, limited in 
some and without limits in others ; it has its beautiful 
scenery and its dismal localities, its sunshine and storms, 
its forms of beauty and horrible shapes. It is the priv- 
ilege of man to retire to that world whenever he chooses ; 
physical enemies do not persecute him there ; bodily pain 
cannot enter. The vexations of material life remain be- 
hind, only that which moves his soul enters with him. 

In this interior realm is the Temple of Man wherein 
he can lock the door against the intrusion of sensual im- 
pressions. On the entrance of that temple are the 

136 



ILLUSIONS. 137 

Dwellers of the Threshold, made of desires and passions, 
which are our own creations, and which must be con- 
quered before we can enter. Within that temple exists 
a world, as big and illimitable as the unbounded universe. 
In this inner realm is the God whose spirit floats over the 
waters of the deep, and whose Hat calls into existence the 
creatures which inhabit the kingdom of mind. 

In the air surrounding the centre of that interior 
world is the battle ground of the gods. There the gods 
of love and hate, the daemons of lust and pride, and anger, 
the devils of malice, cruelty, and revenge, vanity, envy, 
and jealousy, hold high carnival, they stir up the emo- 
tions, and, unless subdued by Reason, grow strong enough 
to dethrone it. 

Reason rests upon the recognition of Truth. Wher- 
ever truth is disregarded illusions appear. If we lose 
sight of the highest, the low will appear, and an illusion 
will be created. One is the number of Truth, Six is the 
number of illusion, because the Six have no existence 
without the Seventh, they are the visible products of the 
one, manifesting itself as six around an invisible centre. 
Wherever they are six, there must be the seventh. The 
six cannot know the seventh if the seventh does not 
become manifest. God knows himself; but we cannot 
know his presence unless that presence becomes mani- 
fested in us. One is the number of life, and six the num- 
ber of shadows, having no life of their own. 

Forms without life are illusive, and he who mistakes 
the form for the life or principle of which it is an ex- 
pression is haunted by an illusion. Forms perish, but 
the principle that causes their existence remains. The 
object of forms is to represent principles, and as long as 
a form is a true representation of a principle the prin- 
ciple gives it life ; but if a form is made to serve another 
principle than the one which called it into existence, 
degradation will be the result. 

The irrational forms produced by nature are perfect 
expressions of the principles they are intended to repre- 
sent; rational beings only are the dissemblers. Eacn 
animal is a true expression of the character represented 
by its form, only at the point where intellectuality begins 



138 MAGIC. 

deception commences. Each animal form is a symbol of 
the mental state which characterises its soul, because it is 
not itself the arbitrary originator of its form, but rational 
man has it in his power to create, and if he prostitutes 
one principle in a form for another, the form will grad- 
ually adopt that shape which characterises the prostituted 
principle, of which, in the course of time, it becomes a 
true expression. 

Therefore we find that a man of noble appearance, by 
becoming a miser, gradually adopts the sneaking look 
and the stealthy gait of an animal going in search of its 
prey; the lascivious may acquire the habits, and perhaps 
the appearance, of a monkey or goat, the sly one the 
features of a fox, and the conceited the looks of a donkey. 

If our bodies were formed of a more ethereal and 
plastic material than of muscles and bones, each change 
of our character would produce quickly a corresponding 
change of our form ; but gross matter is inert and follows 
only slowly ,the impressions made upon the soul. The 
material of which astral forms are made are more plastic, 
and the soul of a villainous person may actually resemble 
a pool filled with vipers and scorpions, the true symbol of 
his moral characteristics, mirrored in his mind. A gen- 
eration of saints would, in the course of time, produce a 
nation of Apollos and Dianas, a generation of villains 
would grow into monsters and dwarfs. To keep the form 
in its original beauty the principle must be kept pure and 
without any adulteration. 

One fundamental colour of the solar spectrum, if un- 
mixed, is as pure as another; one element, if free from 
another, is pure. Unmixed copper is as pure as unalloyed 
gold, and emotions are pure if free from extraneous mix- 
ture. Forms are pure if they represent their principles in 
their purity ; a villain who shows himself what he is is pure 
and true to his nature, a saint who dissembles is impure 
and false. Fashions are the external expressions of the 
mental states of a country, and if men and women degen- 
erate in their character their fashions will become absurd. 

The want of power to discriminate between the true 
and the illusive, between the form and the principle, and 
the consequent error of apprehending the low for the 



ILLUSIONS. 139 

high, is the cause of suffering. Man's material interests 
are generally considered to be of supreme importance, 
and the interests of the highest elements in his constitu- 
tion are forgotten. The power that should be expended 
to feed the high is eaten up by the low. Instead of the 
low serving the high, the high is made to serve the low, 
and instead of the form being used as an instrument of 
action for a high principle, a low principle is substituted 
for a higher one, for the purpose of serving the form. 

Such a prostitution of principle in favour of form is 
found in all spheres of social life. We find it among the 
rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, in the 
forum, the press, and the pulpit, no less than in the halls 
of the merchant and in the daily transactions of life. 
The prostitution of principle is worse than the prostitu- 
tion of the body. He who uses his intellectual powers 
for selfish and villainous purposes is more to be pitied 
than she who carries on a trade with her bodi 1 y charms 
to gain the means by which she may keep that body alive. 
The prostitution of universal human rights for the benefit 
of a few individuals is the most dangerous form of pros- 
titution on Earth.* 

To employ the intellectual powers for selfish purposes 
is the beginning of intellectual prostitution. Blessed are 
they who are able to gain their bread by the honest work 
of their hands, for an employment which requires little 
intellectual attention will leave them free to employ their 
powers for the purpose of spiritual unfoldment; while 
those who spend all their energy upon the lower planes 
of the mind are selling their immortal birthright for a 
worthless mess of potage which will nourish the im- 
permanent intellect while it starves the soul. 

The soul no less than the body requires to be nourished. 
The heart starves if the brain is overfed. The nutriment 
of the soul comes from the action of the spirit in the 

* The difference between vulgar prostitution of the body and the 
more refined prostitution of the intellectual faculties for the purpose 
of accomplishing selfish ends, is merely that in the first class merely 
the grossest parts of the human organization are misused, while in 
the other class the higher and nobler elements are prostituted. There 
are few women in the world who have become degraded from an 
inclination to be so; in the great majority of cases they are the victims 
of circumstances which they had not the power to resist; but intel- 
lectual prostitutes belong to the higher classes, where want and 
poverty are unknown. 



140 MAGIC. 

body, and this food is as "material" and necessary for it 
as physical food for the physical body. The existing of 
the emotions is no nutriment for the soul. The emotions 
belong to the astral form. The nutriment of the soul is 
drawn out of the material body by the power of the 
divine light of the spirit within the heart. 

The greatest of all illusions is the illusion of Self. 
Material man looks upon himself as something existing 
apart from every other existence. The shape of his form 
creates the illusion of being a separate part of the whole. 

Still experience shows that there is not a single element 
in his body, in the constitution of his soul, or in the 
mechanism of his intellect, that is not continually depart- 
ing, and is replaced by others. What belongs to him to- 
day belonged yesterday to another, and will belong to 
another to-morrow. In his physical form there is a con- 
tinual change. In the bodies of organised beings tissues 
disappear slowly or quickly, according to the nature of 
their affinities, and new ones take their places, to be re- 
placed in their turn by others. The human body changes 
in size, shape, and density as age advances, presenting 
sucessively the symbols of the buoyant health in youth, 
the vigorous constitution of manhood, or the grace and 
beauty of womanhood, up to the attributes indicating old 
age, the forerunner of decay and cessation of activity in 
that individual form. 

No less is the change in the mind. Sensation and 
desires change, consciousness changes, memories grow 
dim. No man has the same opinions he had when he 
was a child; knowledge increases, intellect grows weak, 
and on the mental as well as on the physical plane the 
special activity ceases when the accumulated energy is 
exhausted by transformation into other modes of action 
or is transferred into other forms. 

The lower material elements in the constitution of man 
change rapidly, the higher ones change slowly, but only 
the highest elements are enduring. Nothing can be said 
to belong essentially to man but his character. He who 
cares a great deal for his lower nature, cares for that 
which is not his own, but which he has only borrowed 
from nature. While he enjoys its possession an illusion 



ILLUSIONS. 141 

is created, making it appear to be an essential part of 
himself. But man's terrestrial nature is not more an 
essential part of himself than the clothes which a man 
wears, a constituent part of the man. His only true self 
Is his character, and he who loses the purity and strength 
of his character loses all his possessions. 

One of the kings of illusions is Money, the king of 
the world. Money represents the principle of equity, 
and it should be employed to enable everyone to obtain 
the just equivalent for his labour. If we desire more 
money than we can rightfully claim, we wish for some- 
thing that does not belong to us but to another. If we 
obtain labour without paying for it its proper equivalent, 
we deprive others of justice, and therefore deprive our- 
selves of the truth, which is a more serious loss to our- 
selves than the loss of money to the defrauded. 

Money as such is a symbol, only the principle which 
it represents has a real existence. Nevertheless we see 
the world lie at the feet of the illusion. The poor clamour 
for it, and the rich crave for more, and the general desire 
is to obtain the greatest amount of reward by giving the 
least possible equivalent. Clergymen save souls, and 
doctors cure bodies for the purpose of making money; 
law is sold to him who is able and willing to pay, fame 
and reputation and the semblance of love can be obtained 
for money, and the worth of a man is expressed in the 
sum of •shillings or pounds which he may call his own. 
Starvation theatens the poor, and the consequences of 
superabundance the rich, and the rich take advantage of 
the distress of the poor to enrich themselves more. 
Science exerts her powers to increase the amount of 
material comforts of man. It vanquishes the impedi- 
ments presented by time and space, and turns night into 
day. New engines are invented, and the work whose 
performance in former times required the use of a thous- 
and arms, may now be accomplished by a child. An im- 
mense amount of personal suffering and labour is thereby 
saved. But as the means to satisfy the craving for com- 
fort increase a craving arises for more. Things that 
formerly were considered luxuries now become indispens- 
able needs. Illusions create illusions, and desires give 



142 MAGIC. 

rise to desires. The sight of the principle is lost, and the 
golden calf is put into its place. Production is followed 
by over production, the supply exceeds the demand, the 
price of labour comes down to starvation rates, and on 
the rotten soil the mushrooms of monopoly grow. The 
more the facilities increase to sustain the battle of life, 
the more increases its fury. The noblest power of man, 
his intellect, whose destiny it is to form a solid basis for 
the highest spiritual knowledge of man, is forced to 
labour for the satisfaction of the animal instincts of man ; 
the body flourishes while the soul starves and becomes a 
beggar in the kingdom of truth. 

From the love of self arises the love of possession. It 
is the hydra-headed monster whose cravings can never be 
stilled. Nearest to the illusion of self stands the illusion 
of so-called Love. True love is not an illusion, it is the 
power that unites the worlds and an attribute of the 
spirit ; but the illusion of love is not love, but only love's 
shadow. True love is sacrifice, but false love cares for 
itself, and seeks for enjoyment. True love exists, even if 
the form is dissolved ; false love dies, when the form to 
which it was attached decays. 

Ideal woman is the crown of creation, and has a right 
to be loved by man. A man who does not love beauty 
has no element of beauty in him. Man loves beauty and 
woman loves strength. A man who is the slave of his 
desires is weak, and cannot command the respect of 
woman. If she sees him squirm under the lash of his 
animal passions, she will see an animal and will not be 
able to look upon him as her protector and god. 

Marital love is a law of nature and a necessity for the 
propagation of man. But however beautiful the rela- 
tions between husband and wife may be, sexual inter- 
course belongs to the animal kingdom and not to the 
spiritual nature of man. Mutual attraction between ani- 
mals is not less beautiful and usually more pure than 
among mankind; the birds of the air do not marry for 
money, and often animals die on account of their grief 
over the death of their mates. A person who has not yet 
outgrown his terrestrial nature will yearn for terrestrial 
love; a celibacy enforced by law is a crime against na- 



ILLUSIONS. 143 

ture; a celibacy enforced by circumstances is a misfor- 
tune; but for the spiritually unfolded soul there exists a 
higher attraction ; the true divine requires no law to teach 
him celibacy ; he is already a natural celibat, an inhabitant 
of that kingdom (coelum), where terrestrial marriage 
does not exist. 

Another illusion is the craving for physical life, and 
well may he crave for it who has no individual character 
of his own, because, if he loses his life, he loses his all. 
Men and women cling to the illusion of life because they 
do not know what life is. They will submit to indignity, 
dishonour, and suffering rather than die. But why should 
animal life be so desirable as to sacrifice character for it? 
One life is only one temporary condition among a thous- 
and similar ones through which the individuality of man 
passes in its travels on the road to perfection, and 
whether he remains a longer or a shorter interval at one 
station, cannot be of any very serious importance to him. 
Man can make no better use of his life than to sacrifice 
it, if necessary, for a high purpose; because this act will 
strengthen his own individuality, in which rests the power 
by which he is enabled to reappear in a new form. 

On the other hand, he who sneaks away from the battle 
of life for selfish purposes, or because he is afraid to con- 
tinue its struggles, will not escape. He may wish to step 
out of life and destroy his body, but the law cannot be 
cheated. Life will remain with him until his natural days 
would have ended. He cannot destroy it, he can only 
deprive himself of the instrument through which he can 
act. He resembles a man who has to perform some 
work and throws away the instrument which would have 
enabled him to perform it. Vain will be his regrets. 

Another illusion is a great deal of what is called 
"science/' True knowledge makes a man free, but false 
science renders him a slave to the opinions of others. 
Many men waste their lives to learn that which is 
foolish and neglect that which is true, mistaking that 
which is evanescent and perishing for the eternal. Often 
learning is not the aim but the means to the aim of the 
student, while his real objects are the attainment of 
wealth, position, and fame, or the gratification of am- 



144 MAGIC. 

bition or curiosity. The true wealth of a nation or a 
man does not rest in its collected opinions, but in moral 
and spiritual possessions, which alone will remain per- 
manent. 

There is nothing more productive of a tendency to the 
development of an extreme degree of selfishness than 
the development of a high degree of intellectuality, with- 
out any accompanying growth of spirituality. A high 
degree of intellectuality enables a person to take per- 
sonal advantages over others who are less clever, and 
unless he possesses great moral powers he will not 
be able to resist the temptations that are put in his 
way. The greatest villains and criminals have been 
persons of great intellectual qualifications. That which 
a man really needs to know, and without whose knowl- 
edge he cannot obtain the consciousness of his own true 
and immortal nature, is not taught in our colleges. 
The most favoured student is he who is taught by his 
God. "Blessed is he whom wisdom teaches, not by 
perishable emblems and words, but by its own inherent 
power; not what it appears to be, but as it is"* 

The desire for power and fame are other illusions. 
True power is an attribute of the spirit. If I am 
obeyed because I am rich, it is not myself who com- 
mands obedience, but my riches. If I am called power- 
ful because I enjoy authority, it is not myself who is 
powerful, but it is the authority vested in me. Riches 
and authority are illusions thrown around men, which 
often vanish as quickly as they have been acquired. 
Fame is often enjoyed by him who does not deserve it. 
The most honoured man is he who has cause to respect 
himself. 

Place of. birth and condition of life are circumstances 
which are usually not matters of choice, and no one has 
a right to despise another on account of his nationality, 
religious belief, colour of skin, or the act he may play 
on this planet. Whether an actor plays the part of a 
king or a servant, the actor is, therefore, not despised, 
provided he plays his part well. 

"Honour and shame from no conditions rise; i 
Act well your part, there all the honour lies." 

Pope. 
* Thomas de Kempis. 



ILLUSIONS. 145 

One of the greatest illusions is much of what goes to- 
day by the name of "religion;" not religion itself, but 
its mask in the shape of clericalism, priestcraft, and 
orthodoxy. Each religious system represents an ex- 
pression of truth, but it requires the possession of truth 
to find truth therein. As a man's spirit cannot exist 
upon this earth and express itself except in and through 
the material body, so each church, however spiritual 
its soul may be, has an external, physical, animal, and 
mental organism, represented by the members composing 
the church or society and by its doctrines, creeds, theories, 
and speculations ; neither can the spiritual organism be 
separated from the lower principles ; such a separation 
would be death to the visible church. Thus the lower 
self of the church battles for life and is founded upon 
selfishness, while its spires reach up to heaven. All 
that can be hoped for reasonably is that the spirituality 
at the top may gradually descend to the foundations, and 
that each member may find the truth contained in his 
religious system, not by the candle light of blind specula- 
tion and foolish belief, but by its own light; for the 
truth requires no other light but itself. 

There are other illusions which come without being 
asked, and remain, although their stay is not wanted. 
They are the unwelcome visitors — Fear, Doubt, and Re- 
morse. Their father is "selfishness," and "cowardice" 
is the name of the mother. Born from the kingdom of 
darkness, their substance is ignorance, which only the 
magic of true knowledge can dissolve. Men live in fear 
of a revengeful power which has no existence, and die 
from fear of an evil that does not exist. They are afraid 
of the effects of causes which they, nevertheless, continue 
to create; and not daring to face their natural conse- 
quences, they seek to escape from the creatures which 
they themselves have created. Every act creates a 
cause, and the cause is followed by an effect which 
reacts on him who created the cause, whether he may 
experience that effect in this life or in another. To 
escape the effect of the cause which has been created, he 
who created the cause must try to transform himself into 
another being. If the elements composing his lower 



146 MAGIC. 

nature have led him into making mistakes they will 
suffer, but if he succeeds in living in his higher nature 
he changes himself into a superior being. Only in this 
sense is the Christ in every human nature the "Lamb" 
taking upon himself the sins of that world. The lamb 
is the symbol of obedience to divine law; this obedience 
is wisdom; wisdom is self-knowledge; divine self-knowl- 
edge is divine being, and he who has entered the state 
of Divinity is one with the law and has ceased to sin. 
Such is the only rational philosophy of the "forgiveness 
of sins/' and priests could forgive sins if they were able 
to change the sinner into a saint. This can, however, 
only be done by the individual exertions of the "sinner," 
who may be instructed by one who is wise. To become 
sufficiently wise to instruct another about the laws of 
his nature it is of the utmost importance that the in- 
structor should know these laws, and be acquainted 
with the true constitution of man. 

The truth is the saviour of man, ignorance is his per- 
dition. Reason is the power of the mind to recognise 
the truth, and in the light of truth the shadows of doubt 
and fear and remorse cannot exist. 

Illusions are dispersed through the power of true 
knowledge. When the will is held in abeyance the 
imagination is rendered passive, and the mind takes 
in the reflections of pictures stored up in the Astral Light 
without choice or discrimination. When reason does 
not guide the imagination the mind creates disorderly 
fancies and hallucinations. The passive seer dreams 
while awake, and to him his dreams are realities, they 
are impressions caused by foreign ideas taking possession 
of the unresisting mind, and, according to the source 
from which such impressions come, they may be either 
true or false. Various means have been adopted to 
suspend the discriminating power of reason and render 
the imagination abnormally passive, and all such 
practices are injurious, in proportion as they are effica- 
cious. The ancient Pythoness attempted to heighten 
her already abnormal receptivity by the inhalation of 
noxious vapours ; some whirl in a dance until the action 
of reason is temporarily suspended; others use opium, 



ILLUSIONS. 147 

Indian hemp, and other narcotics, which render their 
mind a blank, and induce morbid fancies and illusions.* 
Fortune-tellers and clairvoyants employ various means to 
fix their attention, for the purpose of suspending thought 
and rendering their minds passive ; others stare at mirrors 
or crystals, water or ink,f but the enlightened renders 
his imagination passive by maintaining, under all cir- 
cumstances, tranquillity of the mind. The surface of 
a lake whose water is in motion reflects only distorted 
reproductions of images projected upon it, and if the 
elements in the interior world are in a state of confusion, 
if emotion fights with emotion and the uproar of the 
passions troubles the mind, if the heaven of the soul is 
clouded by prejudices, darkened by ignorance, halluci- 
nated by insane desires, the true images of things seen 
will be equally distorted. The divine principle in man 
remains in itself unaltered and undisturbed, like the 
image of a star reflected in water; but unless its dwelling 
is rendered clear and transparent, it cannot send its rays 

* The fumigations which were used at former times for the purpose 
of rendering reason inactive, and allowing the products of a passive 
imagination to appear in an objective state, were usually narcotic 
substances. Blood was only used for the purpose of furnishing sub- 
stance to Elementals and Elementaries, by the aid of which they 
might render their bodies more dense and visible. 

Cornelius Agrippa gives the following prescription: Make a powder 
of spermaceti, aloe wood, musk, saffron, and thyme, sprinkle it with 
the blood of a hoopop. If this powder is burnt upon the graves of the 
dead, the ethereal forms of the latter will approach, and may become 
visible. 

Eckartshousen made successful experiments with the following 
prescription: Mix powdered frankincense and flour with an egg, add 
milk, honey, and rosewater, make a paste, and throw some of it upon 
burning coals. 

Another prescription given by the same author consists of hemlock, 
saffron, aloes, opium, mandragora, henbane, poppy-flowers, and some 
other poisonous plants. After undergoing a certain preparation, which 
he describes, he attempted the experiment, and saw the ghost of the 
person which he desired to see; but he came very near poisoning him- 
self. Dr. Horst repeated the experiment with the same result, and 
for years afterwards whenever he looked upon a dark object, he saw 
the apparition again. 

Chemistry has advanced since that time, and those who desire to 
make such experiments at the risk of their health, may now accom- 
plish this in a more comfortable and easy manner by inhaling some of 
the stupefying gases known to chemical science. 

t There are numerous prescriptions for the preparation of magic 
mirrors; but the best magic mirror will be useless to him who is not 
able to see clairvoyantly ; while the natural clairvoyant calls that 
faculty into action by concentrating his mind on any particular spot, 
a glass of water, ink, a crystal, or anything; for it is not in the mirror 
where such things are seen, but in the mind; the mirror merely serves 
to assist in the entering of that mental state which is necessary to 
produce clairvoyant sight. The best of all magic mirrors is the soul, 
and it should always be kept pure, and be protected against dust and 
dampness and rust, so that it may not become tarnished, and remain 
perfectly clear, and able to reflect the light of the divine spirit in its 
original purity. 



148 MAGIC. 

through the surrounding walls. The more the emotions 
rage, the more will the mind become disturbed and the 
spiritual soul be forced to retreat into its interior prison ; 
or if it loses entirely its hold over the mind, it may be 
driven away by the forces which it cannot control, burst 
the door of its dungeon, return to the source from whence 
it came.* But as long as this Christ is one of the 
passengers in the boat tossed by the waves of the inner 
life, he will always be ready to come forth, stretch out 
his hand (manifest his power), bidding the turbulent 
waters to be still. Then will the storms cease to rage 
and the soul be restored to calmness. 

If a person suffers his reason to give up the control 
over his imagination he surrenders one of the greatest 
prerogatives of man. True meditation does not consist 
in rendering the mind passive for the influences of the 
astral plane, nor does it consist in dreaming. It is a 
state in which the mind does not roam in the realms of 
the imagination, but is held still by the soul so as to 
receive the light of the spirit. "Yoga is the exercise of 
the power of hold in abeyance the transformations of the 
thinking principle," says the Patanjali, and the Bhagavad 
Gita teaches : "Whenever the wavering and unsteadfast 
heart wanders away, let him subdue it and bring it back 
to the control of the soul."f A person who dreams 
does not control the actions which he performs in his 
dream, although he may dream that he is exercising his 
will. The things seen in his dream are to him realities, 
and he does not doubt their substantiality, while external 
physical objects have no existence for him, and not even 
the possibility of their existence comes to his conscious- 
ness. He may see before him a ditch and dream that 
he wills to jump over it, but he does not actually exert 
his will, he only dreams that he wills. A person in a 
magnetic trance has no active will of his own, and is 

* See H. P. Blavatsky: "Isis Unveiled." 

The author says: "Such a catastrophe may happen long before the 
final separation of the life-principle from the body. When death 
arrives, its iron and clammy grasp finds work with life as usual; but 
there is no more soul to liberate. The whole essence of the latter has 
already been absorbed by the vital system of the physical man. Grim 
death frees but a spiritual corpse, at best an idiot. Unable either to 
soar higher or awaken from lethargy, it is soon dissolved in the ele- 
ments of the terrestrial atmosphere. 

t Bhagavad Gita, vi. 2 b. 

This cannot be accomplished by means of the imagination (which 



ILLUSIONS. 149 

led by the will of the operator. What he sees is real 
to him, and if the operator creates a precipice in his 
imagination, the subject will, on approaching it, exper- 
ience and manifest the same terror as he would in his 
normal state if a precipice were yawning under his feet. 
A glass of water transformed into imaginary wine by 
the will of the "mesmeriser" makes the subject intoxi- 
cated, and if that water has been transformed into 
imaginary poison it may injure or kill the sensitive.* 
A powerful "hypnotiser" can form either a beautiful or 
a horrible picture in his mind, and by transferring it 
by his will upon the mental sphere of a sensitive, he 
may cause him either pleasure or suffering. 

Such states may be induced not merely during the 
"hypnotic" sleep, but also during the normal condition, 
and without any conscious desire on the part of a 
magnetiser. If the audience sheds tears during the per- 
formance of a tragedy, although they all know that it 
is merely a play, they are in a state of partial "hypno- 
tisation." Hundreds of similar occurrences take place 
every day in every country, and there is sufficient ma- 
terial everywhere in every-day life for the student of 
psychology to investigate and explain, without seeking 
for cases of an abnormal character. 

All these things are classified as illusions, because the 
power of reason, the power of discriminating between 
the true and the false has been suspended, which causes 
a person to mistake things for realities which only exist 

ought to be at rest); neither can the mind control its own self; but it 
is done by means of the spiritual power of spiritually awakened man. 

* Mrs. Chandos Leigh Hunt of London, in her "Private Instructions 
in Organic Magnetism," informs us, that imaginary intoxicants, emet- 
ics, &c, have a powerful effect upon subjects. 

Eliphas Levi (Abbe Constant) cites a case in which some sceptics 
submitted a poor girl to magnetic experiments, to gratify their curios- 
ity, and to see whether "magnetism was true." They succeeded in 
putting her to sleep, and commanded her to look into hell. She became 
terribly agitated, and begged for mercy, but they insisted that she 
should go there. 

"The features of the subject became frightful to see; her hair stood 
upright on her head; her eyes were wide open, and showed nothing 
but the white; her bosom heaved, and a kind of death-rattle came 
from her breast. 

" 'Go there! I will it!' repeated the magnetist. 

" 'I am there,' said the wretched subject, between her closed teeth, 
and fell exhausted. Then she spoke no more; her head rests on her 
shoulder; her arms hang motionless down. They approach her, and 
touch her. They wish to awaken her; but the crime has been done; the 
woman was dead, and the authors of this sacrilegious experiment were 
safe from prosecution on account of the public's incredulity in regard 
to such things." 



150 MAGIC. 

in his own imagination, but if this definition is applied 
to every-day existence, it appears that the whole world 
is in a state of hypnotic sleep, for there are few that 
are capable of seeing the truth or to discriminate between 
the true and the false, and few who act always according 
to reason. Whenever the external form of a thing is 
examined carefully, it will always be found to constitute 
an illusion. The illusion does not exist in those things, 
it exists in ourselves. God did not create the world for 
the purpose of deluding mankind. The illusions are 
caused by our own misconceptions of truth, which hinder 
us to see that which is real. If we were to see that 
which is real, we would be knowing the truth. If we had 
always known the truth we would not have needed to 
come into the world. Our existence upon this planet is a 
certificate of our ignorance, and the fact of having been 
born a proof of our folly. 

That which distinguishes a man from an animal is 
the use of his reason. If a "Medium" submits the 
control over his imagination to another being he sur- 
renders his reason. This other being may be another 
person, or an invisible power. It may be an elemental, 
an astral corpse, or a malicious influence, and the 
Medium becomes an epileptic, a maniac, or a criminal. 
A person who surrenders his will to an unknown power 
is not less insane that he who would entrust his money 
and valuables to the first stranger or vagabond that 
would ask him for it. 

If a crime is committed in consequence of "hypnotic 
suggestions," it is the hypnotiser and not the sensitive 
person who is responsible for it. Such cases occur every 
day; for it is not necessary that a very sensitive person 
should be put to sleep for to become capable of being 
influenced by the will of another. All individual minds 
act upon each other; each influences the other or be- 
comes influenced by others without knowing the source 
of the influence. Thoughts and impulses come and go, 
and their source is not known. No man creates his 
own thoughts out of nothing, and he who has no self- 
knowledge cannot even know who or what it is that 
is thinking or willing in him. 



ILLUSIONS. 151 

How many murders and crimes are committed every 
year through sensitive persons, who have been influenced, 
"hypnotised," or "mesmerised" by invisible powers to 
commit them, and who had not sufficient will-power to 
resist, it is impossible to determine. In such cases we 
hang or punish the instrument, but the real culprit 
escapes. Such a "justice" is equivalent to punishing 
a stick with which a murder has been committed, and 
to let the man who used the stick go free. Verily the 
coming generations will have as much cause to laugh at 
the ignorance of their ancestors as we now laugh at the 
ignorance of those who preceded us. 

We take not things for what they are, but for what 
we imagine them to be. The savage sees in the sculp- 
tured Minerva only a curious piece of rock, and a beauti- 
ful painting is to him only a piece of cloth daubed over 
with colours. The greedy miser, looking at the beauties 
of nature, thinks only of the money-value they represent, 
while for the poet the forest swarms with fairies and the 
water with sprites. The artist finds beautiful forms in 
the wandering clouds and in the projecting rocks of the 
mountains, and to him whose mind is poetic every symbol 
in nature becomes a poem and suggests to him new ideas ; 
but the coward wanders through life with a scowl upon 
his face ; he sees in every corner an enemy, and for him 
the world has nothing attractive except his own little 
self. The world is a mirror wherein every man may see 
his own face. To him whose soul is beautiful, the world 
will look beautiful ; to him whose soul is deformed, every- 
thing will seem to be evil. 

The power of the imagination, if rendered strong by 
the will and made alive by the spirit, is little known 
The impressions made on the mind by the effects of such 
an imagination may be powerful and lasting upon the 
person. They change or distort the features, they render 
the hair white in a single hour ; they mark, kill, disfigure, 
or break the bones of the unborn child, and make the 
effects of injuries received by one person visible upon 
the body of another with whom that person is in sym- 
pathy. They act more powerfully than drugs ; they cause 
and cure diseases, produce hallucinations, and stigmata. 



152 MAGIC. 

Imagination performs its miracles, either consciously or 
unconsciously. By altering the surroundings of animals 
the colour of their offspring can be changed at will. 
The tiger's stripes correspond to the long jungle grass, 
and the leopard's spots resemble the speckled light fall- 
ing through the leaves.* The forces of nature, in- 
fluenced by the imagination of man, act on the imagina- 
tion of nature, and create tendencies on the astral plane, 
which, in the course of evolution, find expression through 
material forms. In this way man's vices or virtues be- 
come objective realities, and as man's imagination be- 
comes purified, the earth becomes more beautiful and 
refined, while his vices find their expression in poisonous 
reptiles and noxious plants. The Elementals in the soul 
of man are the products of the action of the thought in 
the individual mind of man; the elemental forms in the 
soul of the world are the products of the collective 
thoughts of all beings. These elemental powers are at- 
tracted to the germs of animals, and may grow into 
objective visible animal forms, and modify the char- 
acters and also the outward appearance of the animals of 
our globe. We therefore see that as the imagination of 
the Universal Mind changes during the course of ages, 
old forms disappear and new ones come into existence. 
Perhaps if there were no snakes in human forms, the 
snakes of the animal kingdom would cease to exist. 

But the impressions made on the mind do not end 
with the life of the individual on the physical plane. A 
cause which produces a sudden terror, or otherwise acts 
strongly on the imagination, can produce an impression 
that not only lasts through life but beyond it. A person, 
for instance, who during his life has strongly believed in 
the existence of eternal damnation and hell-fire, may at 
his entrance into the subjective state after death, actually 
behold all the terrors of hell which his imagination dur- 
ing life has conjured up ; the terrified soul, seeing before 
it all the horrors of its own vivid imagination, rushes 
back again into the deserted body, and clings to it in 
despair, seeking protection. Personal consciousness re- 
turns, and it finds itself alive in the grave, where it 

* Sir John Lubbock: "Proceedings of the British Association." 



ILLUSIONS. 1S3 

passes a second time through, the pangs of death, or, by 
sending out its astral form in search of sustenance from 
the living, it becomes a vampire, and prolongs for a while 
its horrible existence.* Such misfortunes in orthodox 
countries are by no means rare, and the best remedy for 
it is knowledge and the cremation of the body soon after 
death. 

On the other hand, the convicted murderer who, be- 
fore stepping on the gallows, has been fully "converted" 
and "prepared" by the attending clergyman, and made 
to believe firmly that his sins have been forgiven, and 
that the angels will stand ready to receive him with 
open arms, may, on his entrance to the subjective state, 
see the creations of his own imaginations before him 
until the delusion fades away. 

In the state after death and in the devachanic condi- 
tion the imagination neither creates new and original 
forms nor is it capable of receiving new impressions; 
it lives on the sum of the impressions accumulated 
during life, which evolute innumerable variations of 
mental states, symbolised in their corresponding sub- 
jective forms, and lasting until their forces are exhausted. 
These mental states may be called illusive in the same 
sense as events of the physical life may be called illusive, 
and life in "heaven" or "hell" may be called a dream, as 
life on this earth is called a dream. The dream of life 
only differs from the dream after death, that, during the 
one we are able to make use of our will to guide and con- 
trol our imagination and acts, while during the latter 
that guidance is wanting, and we earn that which we have 
sown. No effort, whether for good or for evil, is ever 
lost. Those who have reached out in their aspirations 
towards a high ideal on earth will find it in heaven; 
those whose desires have dragged them down will sink 
to the level of their desires. 

It is generally supposed that this world in which we 
live is the most dense and "material," and the astral 
world the land of vapoury ghosts ; but the terms "ma- 
teriality," "density," &c, are merely relative terms. 
What appear to us dense and material now, will appear 

* Maximilian Perty: "Die mystischen Erscheinungen in der Natur." 



154 MAGIC. 

ethereal or vaporous if we are in another state, and 
things which are invisible to us now may appear grossly 
material then. There are worlds more dense and ma- 
terial to its inhabitants than our physical world is to 
us; for it is the light of the spirit that enlivens matter, 
and the more matter is gathered up by sensuality and 
concentrated by selfishness, the less penetrable to the 
spirit will it become, and the more dense and hard will 
it grow, although it may for all that not be perceptible 
to our physical senses, they being adapted merely to 
our present state of existence. 

There is no heaven or hell but that which man creates 
in his imagination; nevertheless, the state in which he 
lives is real to him. If we wish to secure happiness 
after death in our next life upon this planet, we must 
secure it before we die by controlling our impulses for 
evil, and by cultivating a pure and exalted imagination. 

We should enter the higher life now, instead of wait- 
ing for it to come to us in the hereafter. The term 
"heaven" means a state of spiritual consciousness and 
enjoyment of spiritual truths; but how can he who has 
evolved no spiritual consciousness and no spiritual power 
of perception enjoy the perception of spiritual things 
which he has not the spiritual power to perceive? A 
man without spiritual power entering a heaven would 
be like a man blind and deaf and without the power to 
feel. Man can only enjoy that which he is able to 
realise, that which he cannot realise does not exist for 
him. 

The surest way to be happy is to rise above "self." 
People crave for amusements and pastimes; but to 
forget one's time is to forget one's self; by forgetting 
themselves they are rendered happy. The charm of 
music consists in the temporary absorption it causes to 
the personality in the harmony of sound. If we witness 
a theatrical performance and enter into the spirit of 
the play, we forget our personal sorrows and live in 
the actor. An orator who is in full accord with his 
audience becomes inspired with the sentiments of his 
audience; it is his audience that gives expressions of 
his feelings through him. There are no "spirits" re- 



ILLUSIONS. 155 

quired to inspire an inspirational speaker. If he is 
impressible the thoughts of those that are present will 
be sufficient to inspire him. 

If we enter a cathedral or a temple, whose architecture 
inspires sublimity and solemnity, expanding the soul; 
where the language of music speaks to the heart, draw- 
ing it away from the attachment to the earth; and the 
beauty and odour of flowers lull the senses into a forget- 
fulness of self, such amusements render us temporarily 
happy to an extent proportionate to the degree in which 
they succeed in destroying our consciousness of personal- 
ity and self. 

Illusions as such do not exist; their existence is an 
illusion. Nature is not an illusion, but a manifestation of 
truth. Every form in nature is an expression of truth; 
but it requires the eye of truth to find the truth in those 
forms. If we cling to forms, we cling to illusions, having 
no real existence; if we cling to the truth we have the 
reality. If our happiness depends on the possession of a 
cherished form, our happiness will perish when that form 
disappears. 

To attain real knowledge is to make the mind free of 
its illusions ; this freedom is attained only by a love for 
the truth ; for the truth is the life and the foundation of 
our existence, which will remain after all the illusions 
constituting our lower nature have passed away; when 
we will possess nothing but that which we are, and being 
ourselves the light and the truth we will be in possession 
of truth. 




CHAPTER VII. 
CONSCIOUSNESS. 

"I am that I am."— -Bible. 

Tj 1 VERYTHING in the universe is a manifestation of 
the Universal Mind. Everything is therefore mind 
itself, and exists in absolute consciousness; but 
relative consciousness begins when it becomes manifest in 
the form. The term consciousness signifies realisation of 
existence. Consciousness in the absolute is unconscious- 
ness in relation to things. Consciousness means knowl- 
edge and life; unconsciousness is ignorance and death. 
An imperfect knowledge is a state of imperfect conscious- 
ness ; the highest possible state of consciousness is the full 
realisation of the truth. 

A thing has no existence relatively to ourselves before 
we become conscious of its existence. A person who does 
not realise his own existence is unconscious, and, for the 
time being, to all practical purposes dead. We cannot 
actually realise the existence of a power which we do not 
possess. We see the effects produced by electricity and 
realise that such effects take place ; but we do not realise 
the existence or the nature of what is called "electricity" 
if we are not conscious of that same power existing in our 
own constitution. In the same sense we can realise the 
effect of the manifestation of divine wisdom within the 
universe; we behold the expression of beauty, justice, and 
truth; but we cannot realise the existence of these prin- 
ciples, unless we become conscious of their presence in us. 
God's works exist and we see the products of the action of 
his spirit in nature; but God himself is to us a nonentity 

156 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 157 

if we are not rendered divine by his presence in us; we 
cannot realise the nature of God, unless his divine nature 
is present in us and comes to our own consciousness. A 
state of existence is incomprehensible unless it is experi- 
enced and realised, and it begins to exist from the moment 
that it is realised. If a person were the legal possessor of 
millions of money and did not know it, he would have no 
means to dispose of it or enjoy it. A man is present at 
the delivery of the most eloquent speech, and, unless he 
hears what is said, that speech will have no existence for 
him. Every man is endowed with reason and conscience, 
but if he never listens to its voice, the relation between 
him and the voice of wisdom will cease to exist, and it 
will die for him in proportion as he dies to the power to 
hear it. 

A man may be alive and conscious in relation to one 
thing, and dead and unconscious relatively to another. 
One set of his faculties may be active and conscious, 
while another set is unconscious and its activity suspend- 
ed. A person who listens attentively to music is conscious 
of nothing but sound ; one who is wrapt in the admiration 
of form is only conscious of seeing; another, who suffers 
from pain, may be conscious of nothing but the relation 
that exists between him and the sensation of pain. A man 
absorbed in thought believes himself alone in the midst of 
a crowd. He may be threatened by destruction and be 
unconscious of the danger. If he has the strength of a 
lion, it will avail him nothing unless he becomes conscious 
of it ; he cannot be immortal unless he becomes conscious 
of his own immortal life. The more a person learns to rea- 
lise the true state of his existence the more will he become 
conscious of real existence. If he does not realise his true 
state he does not know himself. If he fully knows him- 
self, he will be conscious of his own powers, he will know 
how to exercise them and become strong. 

To become conscious of the existence of a thing is to 
possess it. To perceive its existence means to enter into 
relation with it, and to realise the existence of that rela- 
tion. Consciousness begins, therefore, wherever sensa- 
tion begins, but sensation and perception of a form are 
only followed by a recognition of the truth if the principle 



158 MAGIC. 

that exists in that form is a conscious power in our own 
constitution. If a stranger is introduced to us we perceive 
his exterior form and see the clothes which he wears, we 
realise his existence as a living form, but we know nothing 
of his true character. His appearance may be prepos- 
sessing and still he may be untruthful, his clothing may be 
new and elegant and still his character bad. His body may 
be healthy, but his soul may be diseased. His certificates 
and testimonials may be excellent, and yet they may de- 
ceive us. If we want to know the true character of the 
man, we must be able to realise the nature of his charac- 
ter in ourselves. We may look into his eyes, and when soul 
speaks to soul, the two will enter into conscious relation 
with each other, and there will be no deception possible. 
This recognition of the truth by direct perception is one 
of the faculties which at the present state of evolution are 
not yet fully developed in man. It is a sixth sense that as 
yet exists only as a bud in the tree of life, while the other 
five senses have been fully developed. Still it exists, and 
therefore the first impression we receive of a stranger is 
usually correct, but not always believed, because specula- 
tion comes in to mislead. 

Perception is the entering into a relation to the object 
of one's perception. Such a relation is only possible if 
the perceiver and the object of his perception exist upon 
the same plane of existence. For this reason physical 
objects are perceived by the physical senses ; the things 
of the soul by the soul, and that which belongs to the 
spirit can only be perceived by the power of the self- 
conscious spirit in man. 

Everything that exists, exists within the Universal 
Mind, and nothing can exist outside of it, because the 
Universal Mind includes all. Perception is a faculty by 
which mind learns to know what is going on within itself. 
To see a thing is to perceive the existence 01 its appear- 
ance within one's own mind; to feel the presence of an 
invisible power within the soul is to become conscious of 
its presence by means of the sense of touch that belongs 
to the mind. Man can know nothing but what exists 
within his own mind. Even the most ardent lover has 
never seen his beloved one, he merely sees the image 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 159 

which the form of the latter produces in his mind. If we 
pass through the streets of a city the images of men and 
women pass review in our mind while their bodies meet 
our own; but for the images which they produce within 
our consciousness we would know nothing about their 
existence. The images produced in the mind come to the 
consciousness whose workshop is the brain ; if man's con- 
sciousness were centered in some other part of his body, 
he would become conscious in that part of the sensations 
which he receives. He might for instance see with his 
stomach or hear with his fingers, as has often been proved 
by scientifically conducted experiments, and the reason of 
it is that sensation is not a quality belonging to the phys- 
ical body; but belongs to the astral form, whose senses 
are not so localised; but which penetrates the physical 
body and whose senses become localised therein. 

A self-conscious power, being universally diffused 
through space, would have the faculty to realise all that 
takes place in any portion of it, because it would be in 
conscious relation with everything. A conscious power 
being bound to a material form, can only realise that 
which enters into relationship with that form. All self- 
consciousness and all perception cannot belong to a lim- 
ited form ; it belongs to the divine nature of man, which is 
not limited by the limitations of form. 

From the influence of the universal power of Mind, 
and the resistance of the form, physical senses came into 
existence. If man had originally remained in perfect 
harmony with the Universal Mind, he would never have 
become clothed in a material form. There could be no 
perception without resistance. If our bodies were per- 
fectly transparent to light we could not perceive the light, 
because light cannot illuminate itself. The Astral Light 
penetrates our bodies, but we are not able to see it, be- 
cause the physical body offers no resistance to it. 

At the time when we fall asleep, consciousness grad- 
ually leaves its seat in the brain and merges into the 
consciousness of the "inner man." We then begin to real- 
ise another state of existence ; and if a part of the con- 
sciousness still remains with the brain, the perception of 
the interior consciousness comes to the cognisance of the 



160 MAGIC. 

personal self. It is therefore possible in that half-con- 
scious state, between sleeping and waking, when con- 
sciousness is oscillating between two states of existence, 
to receive important revelations from the higher state and 
retain them in the personal memory. The more our con- 
sciousness merges in that higher state, the better will we 
realise the higher existence, but the impressions upon our 
external self will become dim and not be remembered; 
but as long as the greatest part of our consciousness is 
active within the material brain, the perceptions of a 
higher state will only be dim and mixed up with memories 
and sensations of the lower state of existence. 

There probably was a time in the development of the 
body of man, when his form was — so to say — all eye, and 
his whole surface sensitive to the power of light. The 
resistance of his form to the influence of light created the 
eye. Fishes have been fonud in subterranean lakes which 
have no eyes ; there being no light, they needed no organs 
to receive it and none to resist it. In tropical countries 
the intensity of light is stronger. Tropical man needs the 
dark pigment in his skin to protect his nude body from the 
influence of the tropical sun. 

There are semi-material existences (Elementals) which 
have no teguments sufficiently solid to protect them from 
terrestrial light. Such natures are very sensitive to the ac- 
tion of light, they can only continue to live in darkness and 
only manifest their powers at night.* If the astral body 
of man were exposed to the full influence of the astral 
light, without having acquired the power to resist it, it 
would be destroyed slowly or quickly according to the 
intensity of that light. The myths of "hell" and "purga- 
tory" are suggestive of that action of the destructive action 
of Astral Light. But this destruction is not necessarily 
accompanied by sensation, unless that body is conscious. 
A corpse from which the spirit has withdrawn may be 

* Adolphe d'Assier, who spent much time in the investigation of 
occult phenomena, tells of a case, where a person slept in a "haunted 
house," for the purpose of investigating the spook. He went to bed 
and left the light burning. At once a dark shadow seemed to rush 
through the door into his room and went under his bed. Soon a long 
arm extended from under the bed, reached up to the table and 
extinguished the light, and immediately the rampage began. Furniture 
was overthrown and broken, and the noise was so great that it attract- 
ed the neighbours, who came with a light, when the dark shadow fled 
through the door. 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 161 

cremated and cannot feel it, an astral corpse may dissolve 
into its elements and feel no pain. Only when a form 
becomes associated with spirit, in whatever plane of exist- 
ence, there will sensation become manifest. 

Some of the practices of black magic and necromancy 
are based upon this fact, and it does not appear impossible 
that the astral bodies of the dead may be tormented by 
the living, if they knew how to endow them with spirit, 
and to reawaken consciousness by infusing some of their 
own life within these forms. 

If our bodies were sufficiently ethereal to pass through 
others without experiencing any resistance, we would not 
feel their presence. If the keyboard of the ear were not 
present to receive the vibrations of sound, hearing would 
be defective. The power to resist produces sensation. 

Man suffers because he resists. If he were to obey 
the laws of his nature under all circumstances, he would 
know no bodily disease; if he were to execute in all things 
the divine will of God, he would incur no suffering. 

Life, sensation, perception, and consciousness may be 
withdrawn from the physical body and become active in 
the astral body of man. The astral man then becomes 
conscious of his existence independent of the physical 
body and can develop faculties of sense. He may then 
see sights which have no existence for the physical eye, 
hear sounds that the physical ear cannot hear, feel, taste, 
and smell things whose existence the physical senses can- 
not realise, and which consequently have no existence to 
them. 

What an astonishing sight would meet the eyes of a 
mortal, if the veil that mercifully hides the astral world 
from his sight were to be suddenly removed ! He would 
see the space which he inhabits occupied by a different 
world full of inhabitants, of whose existence he knew 
nothing. What before appeared to him dense and solid 
would now seem to be shadowy, and what seemed to him 
like empty space he would find peopled with life. 

Scientifically conducted researches have brought to 
light many instances of cases in which the astral senses 
have been rendered more or less active. The Seeress of 
Prevost, for instance, perceived many things which for 



162 MAGIC 

other persons had no existence ; the history of the saints 
gives numerous similar examples, and modern "medium- 
ship" proves the existence of such inner senses by facts 
which occur every day. If the astral senses of a person, 
are fully alive and active, he is able to perceive things 
without the use of his physical senses. He will be clair- 
voyant and clairaudient , he will be able to see, hear, feel, 
taste, and smell the astral attributes of things existing in or 
out of corporeal forms. 

All houses are "haunted," but not all persons are equally 
able to see the ghosts that haunt them, because to perceive 
things on the astral plane requires the development of a 
sense adapted to such perceptions. Thoughts are "ghosts/* 
and only those that can see images formed of thought can 
see "ghosts," unless the latter are sufficiently material- 
ised to reflect the light and to become visible to the eye. 

We may feel the presence of an astral form without 
being able to see it, and be just as certain of its presence 
as if we did behold it with our eyes ; for the sense of touch 
is not less reliable than the sense of sight. The presence 
of a holy, high, and exalted idea that enters the mind fills 
it with a feeling of happiness, with an exhilarating influ- 
ence whose vibrations may be perceived long after that 
thought has gone. 

The explanation which material science gives in regard 
to the process of seeing only explains the formation of a 
picture on the retina of the physical eye, but gives no 
explanation whatever how these pictures come to the con- 
sciousness of the mind. If the mind of man were en- 
closed in the physical body of man he could not perceive 
the size of any exterior thing. In such a case he could at 
best see the minute picture formed on his retina, and the 
outside world would appear to him like the microscopic 
object seen through a reversed telescope. But the reflec- 
tions formed in the physical eye only serve to call the 
attention of the mind to the objects of its perception, or 
awaken the interior sense of feeling which the mind pos- 
sesses to a consciousness of its relation to the objects of 
its perception, which exist within its own sphere. Visible 
man is the kernel of the invisible man, the sphere of his 
mind surrounds him on all sides like an invisible pulp, ex- 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 163 

tending far into space, and he can become conscious of the 
objects existing within that sphere if he recognizes his 
relation with them. 

This invisible and ethereal sphere is as essential to con- 
stitute a man as the pulp of a peach is essential to consti- 
tute a peach, but material science knows only the kernel, 
and knows nothing about the pulp. Still this soul sphere 
exists, and intermingles with the spheres of others, pro- 
ducing sympathies, or antipathies, according to the har- 
mony, or disharmony, of their respective elements. A 
great many events may take place within one's mind and 
we may not perceive them, unless our attention is attract- 
ed to them, and they come to our consciousness. 

The mind perceives what is going on in the physical 
plane by being awakened by physical means to a con- 
sciousness of his relationship with physical things ; it 
perceives what is going on in the realm of the soul by 
being awakened to a consciousness of his relationship 
with the realm of the soul by influences coming from that 
realm, and it perceives spiritual truth by being awakened 
to a recognition of its relationship to truth by the power 
proceeding from it. 

The physical body may be dormant and perceive no ex- 
ternal objects; the astral senses are undeveloped; the 
spiritual power of perception in the majority of mankind 
is still. inactive, and feels the presence of the spirit only by 
the uncertain reflex of its light, like a man in a semi- 
conscious condition may see the reflex of light shining 
through the closed lids and not know what it is. This is 
the power of intuition that precedes an awakening to 
spiritual knowledge. 

Mind has no conceivable limits, and distance is there- 
fore no impediment to mental perception, because a mind 
being in solidarity with the whole stands in relation to 
every part of the whole, and as soon as man recognises 
his relation to an object in space he becomes conscious of 
its presence. 

The reason why the mind of man does not perceive 
everything and requires the aid of the physical senses, is 
that Adam is still sleeping the sleep which came over him 
while he was an inhabitant of the paradise. He is still 



164 MAGIC. 

unconscious of the fact that his real nature comprises the 
all; his consciousness has become bound to a material 
form, and he is now the prisoner of that form. 

To see a thing is identical with touching it with the 
mind. The individual mind of man being one with the 
universal mind, extends through space ; it is therefore not 
merely the images of things, but the things themselves that 
exist within the periphery of our mind, however distant 
from the centre of our consciousness they may be, and if 
we were able to shift that centre from one place to an- 
other within the sphere of the mind, we might in a moment 
of time approach to the object of our perception. 

The mind substance is everywhere, but its conscious- 
ness is limited. If the whole sphere of the mind of a 
man were self-conscious, he would be omnipresent and 
all-knowing. As the sphere of perception of an individual 
mind expands, so expands the sphere of his conscious be- 
ing. 

The centre of consciousness in man is located in the 
brain, and if the mind touches an object the impressions 
have to travel all the way to the brain. If we look at a 
distant star our mind is actually there and in contact with 
it, and if we could transfer our consciousness to that place 
of contact, we would be ourselves upon that star and per- 
ceive the objects thereon as if we were standing person- 
ally upon its surface. 

This however is an impossibility as long as the centre 
of our consciousness is in the brain; because that con- 
sciousness is an illusion itself, it enables us to roam 
through space by means of our imagination, but does not 
reveal the truth. The consciousness of the brain is in 
regard to our true self-consciousness what the false light 
of the moon is to the light of the sun. Our true self- 
consciousness rests in the heart, and therefore the heart 
can expand in that universal love, which is not imaginary, 
through the whole of creation. If that love becomes self- 
conscious in our heart, all the mysteries of the universe 
will be open before us. 

Perception is passive imagination, because if we per- 
ceive an object, the relation which it bears to us comes to 
our consciousness without any active exertion on our 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 165 

part. But there is an active imagination by which we 
may enter into relation with a distant object in space by 
a transfer of consciousness. By this power we may act 
upon a distant object if we succeed in forming a true 
image of it in our own consciousness. By concentrating 
our consciousness upon such an object we become con- 
scious in that place of the sphere of our mind where that 
object exists. Thus we establish a conscious relation be- 
tween such an object and ourselves, but this requires that 
spiritual power which resides in the heart. 

Consciousness is existence, and there are as many 
states of consciousness as there are states of existence. 
Every living being has a consciousness of its own, and the 
state of its consciousness changes every moment of time, 
as fast as the impressions which it receives change; be- 
cause its consciousness is the perception of the relation 
it bears to things^ and as this relation changes, con- 
sciousness changes its character. 

If our whole attention is taken up by animal pleasure, 
we exist in an animal state of consciousenss ; if we are 
aware of the presence of spiritual principles, such as hope, 
faith, charity, justice, truth, &c, we live in our spiritual 
consciousness, and between these two extremes there are 
a great variety of gradations. Consciousness itself does 
not change, it only moves up and down on the scale of 
existence. 

There is only one kind of consciousness which never 
changes its place because it is independent of all relation 
to things. It is the self-consciousness of self-existence, 
the realisation of the / am. It can be ignored, but once 
attained it cannot change, because God never changes; 
its change would involve non-existence or the annihilation 
of all. He who has not attained that true self-conscious- 
ness, the realisation of the existence of his own real self 
does not exist. He may be highly developed physically 
and intellectually; nevertheless he is nothing else but a 
compound of physical and intellectual elements and his 
sense of self an ever-changing illusion. He cannot die, 
because he has never come to life ; he does not truly exist, 
because he does not realise his true existence. There is no 



166 MAGIC. 

one truly alive, except he who can realize his own true 
divine life. 

When Life manifests itself in a form it begins to live 
relatively to form ; but the degree of consciousness of the 
form depends on the state of its organisation. In a low 
organised form there is sensation, but no intelligence. An 
oyster has consciousness, but no intelligence. A man may 
have a great deal of intellect and no consciousness of spir- 
ituality, sublimity, justice, beauty, or truth. 

The lowest existences follow implicitly the laws of 
nature or of Universal Reason; because in them exists no 
differentiation of mind ; they have no will and reason of 
their own. The highest spiritual beings follow their own 
reason; but their will and reason is in harmony with the 
universal law. The difference between the lowest beings 
and the highest ones is, therefore, that the lowest ones 
perform the will of "God" unconsciously and unknow- 
ingly, while the highest ones do the same thing knowingly 
and consciously. It is only the reasoning beings who im- 
agine that they are their own law-givers, and may do what 
they please. All evil is caused by reasoning ; the enlight- 
ened does not reason ; he has Reason itself for his guide. 

The muscular system exercises its habitual movements 
in the act of walking, eating, &c, without being especially 
guided by a superintending intellect, like a clockwork 
that, after being once set in motion, continues to run ; and 
a man who is in the habit of doing that which is right and 
just, will act in accordance with the law of wisdom and 
justice instinctively, and without any consideration or 
doubt. 

Each state of mind has its own mode of perception, 
sensation, instinct, and consciousness, and the activity of 
one may overpower and suppress that of the other. A 
person being only conscious of the sensations created by 
some physical act, is at that time unconscious of spiritual 
influences. One who is under the influence of chloroform 
loses his external sensation. One in a state of trance is 
awake on a higher plane of existence, and unconscious of 
what happens on the physical plane. 

The unintelligent muscular system is conscious of noth- 
ing else but the attraction of Earth. In it the element of 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 167 

Earth predominates, and unless it is upheld by reason, it 
acts according to the impulse created in it by that attrac- 
tion. The astral body is unintelligent, and unless infused 
with the intelligence coming from the higher principles, it 
follows the attractions of the astral plane. These attrac- 
tions are its desires. As the physical body, if unguided by 
reason, follows the law of gravitation, so the astral body 
follows the attractions of desire. The animal conscious- 
ness of man is that unreasoning attraction which impels 
him to seek for the gratification of his instincts. 

Correctly speaking, there is no such thing as animal 
reason, animal intellect, animal consciousness, &c. Con- 
sciousness, reason, intelligence, &c., in the absolute, have 
no qualifications; they are universal principles, that is to 
say, functions of the Universal One Life, manifesting 
themselves on various planes in various forms. 

The condition of a person whose consciousness is no 
more illumined by reason, is seen in emotional mania and 
obsession. In such cases the person acts entirely accord- 
ing to the impulses acting in him, and when he recovers 
his reason, he is unconscious of his actions during that 
state. Such states manifest themselves sometimes in only 
one person, or they affect several persons simultaneously, 
and even whole countries, as has been experienced in 
some wholesale "obsessions" occurring during the Middle 
Ages.* They are often observed in cases of hysteria, may 
be witnessed at religious meetings, during theatrical per- 
formances, during the attack upon an enemy, or at any 
other occasion, where the passions of the multitude are 
excited, inducing them to acts of folly or bravery, and 
enabling people to perform acts which they would be 
neither willing nor able to perform if they were guided 
only by the calculations of their intellect. All such states 
are the manifestation of unseen powers, acting in and 
through different forms. 

There are persons in whom the astral body has become 
the centre of consciousness, and they may acquire the 

* "Histoire des dlables de Loudin." 

Cases of obsession are by no means unfrequent, and manj' cases of 
insanity are merely cases of obsession. It is extremely desirable in the 
interests of humanity that our superintendents and doctors of insane 
asylums should study the occult laws of nature, and learn to know the 
causes of insanity, instead of merely studying their external effects. 



168 MAGIC. 

power to transfer that consciousness to a distant locality. 
Mind is everywhere, and capable of receiving impressions. 
If we steadily concentrate our thoughts upon a distant 
person or a place, a current of mind is created. Our 
thoughts go to the desired locality, for that locality, how- 
ever far it may be, is still within the sphere of mind. If 
we have been there before, or if there is something to at- 
tract us, it will not be difficult to find it. Under ordinary 
circumstances consciousness remains with the body. But 
if our astral elements are sufficiently alive, so as not to 
cling to the body, but to accompany our thoughts, then 
our consciousness may go with them, being projected there 
by the power of the will, and the more the will is intense 
the easier will this be accomplished. We shall then visit 
the chosen place consciously and know what we are doing, 
and our astral elements carry the memory back and im- 
press them upon our physical brain. 

This is the secret how the thought body may be pro- 
jected to a distance by those who have acquired that power. 
It is a power that may be acquired by birth or learned by 
practice. There are persons in whom, in consequence of 
either an inherited peculiarity of the constitution or from 
sickness, such a separation between the physical and astral 
elements may either voluntarily or involuntarily take 
place, and the astral form either consciously or uncon- 
sciously travel to distant places or persons, and by the 
assistance of the odic and magnetic emanations even 
"materialise" into a visible and even tangible form* 

The Kama rupa is sometimes attracted unconsciously to 
places while the physical body is asleep. It has been seen 
by impressible persons on such occasions, but it shows no 
signs of intelligence or life ; it only acts like an automaton 
and returns when the physical body requires its presence. 
At the time of death, when the cohesion between the lower 

* Adolphe d'Assier cites several instances in which the "double" of 
a person was seen simultaneously with the physical form. A young 
lady at college was seen by her mates in the parlour of the school, 
while at the same time her double was in the garden. The stronger 
the "double" grew, the more faint became her corporeal form. When 
she recovered her strength, the double disappeared from sight. In 
this case, the consciousness of the lady was evidently divided between 
the room and the garden, and as her thoughts went to the flowers they 
formed a body there. In studying the law according to which such 
apparently mysterious things occur, it will be advisable to remember 
that all forms, whether material or ethereal, consist merely of certain 
vibrations of primordial matter, manifesting themselves according to 
the character impressed upon them. 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 169 

and higher principles is loosened, such a projection is of 
not infrequent occurrence ; it may then he for a short time, 
conscious, alive, and intelligent, and represent the true 
man.* 

There are a great number of cases on record where, in 
consequence of a sudden and intense emotion, for in- 
stance, the desire to see a certain person, the thought body 
projecting itself from the physical body has become con- 
scious and visible at a distance. In cases of home- 
sickness we find some approach to an instance of this. 
The person separated from home and friends, having an 
intense yearning to see his native place again, projects his 
thoughts to that place. He lives — so to say — in that 
place, while his physical body vegetates in another. He 
becomes weaker, and finally dies ; that is to say, he goes 
where his thoughts already are, although his gradual going 
is imperceptible and unrecognisable to physical senses. 

In cases of sickness or death a similar process of sep- 
aration takes place. When from whatever cause, the 
union between the physical form and the astral body be- 
comes weakened, the astral form separates itself for a 
while or permanently from the physical form. 

The symptoms of such a beginning of separation is 
often observed in severe sickness, when the patient has 
the sensation as if another person were lying in the same 
bed with him. As recovery takes place, the principles 
whose cohesion has been loosened become reunited and 
that sensation disappears. 

According to the plane of existence, where a person 
lives is the state of his consciousness, and each of these 
planes has its own sensations, perceptions, and memories. 
What is seen and perceived and remembered in one state, 
is not remembered in another state, and it is therefore not 
improbable that a person, entering into a higher state of 
consciousness after the death of his body, will remember 
nothing about the conditions of his terrestrial life.f 

* Numerous instances of such occurrences may be found in E. 
Gurney, "Phantasms of the Living." 

t A case is cited in Dr. Hammond's book on insanity, in which 
a servant, while in a state of intoxication, carried a package with 
which he had been entrusted to the wrong house. Having become 
sober, he could not remember the place, and the package was sup- 
posed to be lost; but after he got drunk again he remembered the 
place, he went there and recovered the package. This goes to show 



170 MAGIC. 

In the state of intoxication the person is only conscious 
of his animal existence and entirely unconscious of his 
higher existence. A somnambule in the lucid condition 
looks upon her body as a being distinct from her own self, 
who is, to a certain extent, under her care. She speaks 
of that being in the third person, prescribes sometimes for 
it as a physician prescribes for his patient and often shows 
tastes, inclinations, and opinions entirely opposed to those 
which she possesses in her normal condition. Persons 
while in a trance may love another person intensely, be- 
cause they are then capable to perceive his good interior 
qualities, and detest him when they are in their normal 
condition, when they merely behold his external at- 
tributes.* 

In the state of trance the body is entirely unconscious 
and unable to realise any physical sensation. It may be 
burnt or buried. Such a proceeding would not affect the 
inner man otherwise than to prevent his return to that 
body. But while his earthly form is unconscious, his 
spiritual self is conscious, and may be engaged in duties 
beyond our comprehension, among scenes from which it 
must be painful to return to the bonds of Earth. 

Even while physical consciousness is active the con- 
sciousness of the higher principles may be so exalted as to 
render the body little conscious of pain. History speaks 
of men and women whose souls rejoiced while their earth- 
ly tabernacles were undergoing the tortures of the rack, 
or devoured by flames at the stake. 

Man leads essentially two lives, one while he is fully 
awake, another while he is fully asleep. Each has its own 
perceptions, consciousness, and experiences, but the ex- 
periences during sleep, are not remembered when we are 
fully "awake." At the borderland between sleep and 
waking, where the impressions of each state meet and 
mingle, is the realm of confused dreams, which seldom 
contain any truth. 

This state is, however, favourable to receive impressions 
from the inner self. The inner man may use symbolical 

that when he was drunk he was another person than when he was 
sober; man's Individuality continually changes according to the con- 
ditions in which he exists, and as his consciousness changes he becomes 
another individual, although he still retains the same outward form. 
* H. Zschokke: "Verklaerungen" (Transfigurations). 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 171 

forms and allegorical images to convey ideas to the lower 
self, and to give it admonitions, forebodings, and warn- 
ings in regard to future events. 

There are various kinds of dreams. Many a difficult 
problem has been solved during sleep, and the terrestrial 
world is not always without any reflex of the light from 
above. The mind of the sleeper duirng the sleep of the 
body comes into contact with other minds, and passes 
through experiences which one does not remember when 
awake. Man, in his waking condition, often has experi- 
ences which he afterwards does not remember, but which 
he, nevertheless, enjoyed at the time when they occurred, 
and which at that time were real to him.* 

Man feels in himself at least two sets of attractions 
that come to his consciousness. One set drags him down 
to earth and makes him cling to material necessities and 
enjoyments, the other set, lifting him up into the region of 
the unknown, makes him forget the allurements of matter, 
and brings him nearer to the realm of immortal beaut}'. 
The greatest poets and philosophers have recognized this 
fact of double consciousness, or the two poles of 
one, and between those two poles ebbs and floods the nor- 
mal consciousness of the average human being. 

Goethe expresses this in his "Faust" in about the fol- 
lowing terms : 

"Two souls, alas! are conscious in my breast, 
One from the other seeks to separate. 
One clings to earth, where all its life is rooted, 
The other rises upwards to the gods." 

One attraction arises from Wisdom, another from folly. 
By the power of Knowledge, Man is enabled to choose 
which way he will follow, and by the power of obedience 
he is enabled to proceed. He may live on the lower planes 
of consciousness and become dead to spirituality and im- 
mortal life ; or in the highest spheres of thought, where his 

* One extraordinary case is mentioned in A. P. Sinnett's "Incidents 
in the Life of Madame Blavatsky." Speaking of her sickness in Tifils, 
Madame Blavatsky says, that she had the sensation as if she were two 
different persons, one being the Madame Blavatsky, whose body was 
lying sick in bed, the other person an entirely different and superior 
being. "When I was in my lower state," she says, "I knew who that 
other person was and what she (or he) had been doing; but when I 
was that other being myself, l did not knew nor care who was that 
Madame Blavatsky." It is therefore very well possible that Madame 
Blavatsky's "transcendental Ego," with all its consciousness, faculties, 
and powers of perception, in fact, her real self, was consciously and 
really undergoing certain mysterious experiences in Tibet, while the 
physical instrument, which we call "Madame Blavatsky," was sick at 
Tiflis. 



iW MAGIC. 

mind expands and where he ultimately will find that 
spiritual self-consciousness, which is Divine Wisdom, the 
realisation of eternal truth. Few may be able to reach 
such a state, and few will be able to comprehend its pos- 
sibility ; but there have been men who, on the threshold of 
Nirwana, and while their physical bodies continued to live 
on this planet, could consciously roam through the inter- 
planetary spaces and see the wonders of the material and 
spiritual worlds. This is the highest form of Adeptship 
attainable on Earth, and to him who accomplishes it the 
mysteries of the Universe will be like an open book. 

Divine Wisdom for the purpose of manifesting itself 
requires an organism. In the mineral kingdom it mani- 
fests itself as attraction, in plants as life, in animals as 
instinct, in human beings as reason, in Divine natures as 
self-knowledge; on every plane the character of its mani- 
festation depends on the character of the organism 
through which it acts. Without a human organism, even 
the most intelligent animal cannot become a man ; without 
a spiritual organism even the most pious christian will be 
only a dreamer. 

Every state of consciousness requires for its expression 
a suitable organism, and the greater the realm of its man- 
ifestation, the more expanded must be the sphere of its 
activity. There is no realisation of physical existence 
without a physical body; there is no emotional nature 
without an organized astral form ; no ideation without an 
organized mind, and no divine existence without an incor- 
ruptible body. Without that spiritual organisation, whose 
elements are self-conscious immortality, divine justice, 
eternal beauty and harmony, universal justice and love, 
knowledge and power, purity and perfection, freedom 
and glory, even the most devout worshipper can only feel. 
Even the most devout worshipper, as long as the divine 
spirit has not awakened within his soul, will merely feel 
the beauties of the spiritual realm in the same sense as a 
blind man may enjoy the warm rays of the sunshine with- 
out being able to see the light ; only when the process of 
spiritual regeneration has been accomplished will he be 
able to see the sun of divine glory within his own soul, 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 173 

and know that he exists as an eternal, self-existent and 
immortal power in God. 

To become a magician requires a perfect man and not 
merely a being born of a dream ; the exercise of spiritual 
power requires a substantial body as its foundation; to 
attain true knowledge of all the mysteries of the universe 
requires an organisation as large as the world. This 
spiritual body grows out of the elements of the corruptible 
material body. Without that organism there can be no 
realisation of one's own divine nature: "Unless a man 
is reborn in the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of 
God." 




CHAPTER VIII. 

UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 
"Omne bonum a Deo, imperfectum a Diabalo."-— Paracelsus. 

r* ONSCIOUSNESS is knowledge and life; uncon- 
^ sciousness is ignorance and death. If we are con- 
scious of the existence of a thing, we know that a 
relation exists between ourselves and that thing. If we 
become unconscious of its existence, neither we nor that 
object ceases to exist, but we fail to recognize its relation 
to us. As soon as we begin to realise that relation, the 
character of the object perceived in the sphere of our 
mind becomes a part of our mental constitution, and we 
begin to live in relation to it. We then possess it in our 
consciousness, and may retain it there by the power of our 
Will. If it disappears, we may recall it by the power of 
recollection and memory. To know an object is to live 
relatively to it, to forget it is to cease to exist in relation 
to it. 

Unconsciousness, ignorance, and death are therefore 
synonymous terms, and everyone is dead in proportion as 
he is ignorant. If he is ignorant of a fact, he is dead rel- 
atively to it, although he may be fully alive relatively to 
other things. We cannot be conscious of everything at 
once, and therefore, as our impressions and thoughts 
change, our consciousness and relation to certain things 
change and we continually die relatively to some things 
and live relatively to others. There can be no absolute 
unconsciousness ; because the One Life is self-existent 
and independent of its manifestations. It manifests itself 
in our forms and even if our forms dissolve, Life con- 
tinues to be and to evolve other forms.. There can be no 
cessation of absolute consciousness as long as there is 
absolute being, because the "Absolute" never ceases to be 

174 



UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 175 

in relation to itself. Relative death and unconsciousness 
occurs every moment, and we are not aware of its occur- 
rence. We meet hundreds of corpses in the streets, 
which are entirely dead and unconscious in regard to cer- 
tain things of which we are alive; and we are dead in 
regard to many things to which others are alive and con- 
scious. Only simultaneously occurring omniscience in 
regard to everything that exists would be absolute life 
without any admixture of death, but such a state is an im- 
possibility as long as man is bound to a personality and 
limited form, and has therefore only a limited existence 
and consciousness. 

Each principle in man has a certain sphere of activity, 
and its perceptions can only extend to the limits of that 
sphere. Each is dead to such modes of activity as are in 
no relation with it. Minerals are unconscious of the action 
of intelligence, but not of the attraction of Earth; the 
spirit is dead to earthly attraction and mechanical press- 
ure, but not to love. If we can change the mode of activ- 
ity in a form, we call into existence a new state of con- 
sciousness, because we establish new relations of a differ- 
ent order; the old activity dies and a new one begins to 
live. 

If the energy which we are now using for the purpose 
of digesting food, for performing intellectual labour and 
for enjoying sensual pleasures, were used for the pur- 
pose of developing the spiritual germs contained within 
the constitution of man, we would be in a comparatively 
short time rewarded for our labour by becoming superior 
beings, of a state so far above our present condition, that 
we can at present not even conceive of it, because we 
have no experience about it. 5A.11 we know about such 
states is that which has been told to us by those who 
have entered it, and in moments of tranquility and ex- 
altation the soul of even not highly spiritually developed 
people may occasionally pass by the temple of divine 
wisdom, when the door is left ajar, and from the glance 
caught of the interior light that streams through the 
Gates of Gold it may form a conception about the beau- 
ties contained therein. 

In the constitution of average man life is especially 



176 MAGIC. 

active in the physical body, and he clings to the life of 
that body as if it were the only possible mode of exist- 
ence. He knows of no other mode of life, and is there- 
fore, afraid to die. A person who has concentrated his 
life and consciousness into his astral body will be con- 
scious of another existence, and his physical body will be 
only so far of value to him, as by its instrumentality 
he can act on the physical plane. Physical death is a 
continuation of the activity of life in other principles. 
If we, by an occult process, concentrate all our life into 
our higher principles before our body ceases to live, we 
master death, and live independent of our physical body.* 

Such a transfer of life and consciousness is not beyond 
possibility. It has been accomplished by many, and will 
be accomplished by others. The material elements of 
the physical body are continually subject to elimination 
and renewal. By permitting the physical body gradually 
to die, while the spiritual organism becomes developed, 
the astral body assumes the functions of the physical 
form. 

No one would be willing to look upon such a change 
as death, and nevertheless it would be nothing else but 
a mode of dying slow as far as the physical body is 
concerned, while at the same time it is a raising of the 
real man into a superior form of existence. Death — 
whether slow or quick — is nothing but a process of 
purification, by which the imperfect is eliminated and 
rendered unconscious. Nothing perishes but that which 
is not able to live. Principles cannot die, only their 
manifestations cease in one plane, to appear in another. 

Only that which is perfect can remain without being 
changed. God does not redeem the personal man by 
the process of death; he redeems himself by freeing 
himself from the personality of the man. Truth, wisdom, 
justice, beauty, goodness, &c, cannot be exterminated; 
it is merely the forms in which they become manifest 
that can be destroyed. If all the wise men in the world 
were to die, the principle of Wisdom would nevertheless 

* Such beings exist and are called "Nirmanakayas." See H. P. 
Blavatsky, "Tl Voice of the Silence," Part III. They are not to be 
confounded with the so-called "Theosophical Mahatmas," who are 
terrestrial men and Adepts; but who have been represented by some 
fanatical admirers as "spirits" or ghosts. 



UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 177 

continue to exist, and manifest in due time in other re- 
ceptive forms; if Love were to leave the hearts of all 
human beings, it would thereby not be annihilated, it 
would merely cease to exist relatively to men, and men 
would cease to live, while love would continue 
to be. Eternal principles are self-existent, and therefore 
independent of forms, and not subject to change; but 
forms are changeable, and cannot continue without the 
presence of the principles whose instruments for mani- 
festation they represent. 

The human body is an instrument for the manifesta- 
tion of life, the soul is an instrument for the manifesta- 
tion of spirit. When life leaves the body, the body 
disintegrates; if the spirit leaves the astral form, the 
latter dissolves. A person in whom the spiritual prin- 
ciple has become entirely inactive is morally dead, al- 
though his body may be full of life and his earthly soul 
full of animal desires. Such spiritless living corpses or 
shells are often seen in fashionable society as well as in 
the crowds where the vulgar assemble. A person in 
whom the principle of reason has become inactive is in- 
tellectually dead, although his body may be full of ani- 
mal life; lunatics are dead people, in whom reason has 
ceased to live. If the soul leaves the body, the form dies, 
but the soul lives if endowed with spirit, but if its con- 
nection, with spirit ceases, either before or after the death 
of the body, it dissolves into the elements of the astral 
plane. 

The astral soul, like the body, is a compound organ- 
ism, composed of various elements. Some of these ele- 
ments may be fit to assimilate with the spirit, others are 
not fit to do so. If a person during his earthly life, 
has not purified his soul sufficiently, so as to enter the 
spiritual state immediately after death of the physical 
body, a gradual separation of the pure and impure ele- 
ments from the still impure remains takes place in the 
state after death. When the final separation is accomp- 
lished, the spiritual elements enter the spiritual state 
(which, in fact, they have never left) ; and the lower 
elements remain in the lower plane, where they gradually 
disintegrate. 



178 MAGIC. 

If the organisation of the physical body becomes 
impaired to such an extent, that the principle of life 
cannot employ it any longer to serve as an instrument 
for its manifestation, it ceases to act. Death may begin 
at the head, the heart, or the lungs but life lingers 
longest in the head, and is still active there to a certain 
extent after the body, to all exterior appearances, has 
become unconscious and ceased to live. The power of 
thought continues for a time to work in its habitual man- 
ner, although sensation has ceased to exist in the nerves. 
This activity may even grow in intensity as the prin- 
ciples become disunited ; and if the thought of the dying 
is intensely directed upon an absent friend it can im- 
press itself upon the consciousness of that friend, and 
perhaps cause him to see the apparition of the dying. At 
last vitality leaves the brain, and the higher principles 
depart, carrying with them their proper activity, life, 
and consciousness, leaving behind an empty form, a mask, 
and illusion. There need not necessarily be any loss 
of consciousness in regard to the persons and things by 
which the dying person is surrounded; the only con- 
sciousness which necessarily ceases is that which re- 
fers to conditions concerning his personality, such as 
physical sensation, pain, weight, heat and cold, hunger 
and thirst, which affected the physical form. As his 
life departs from the brain, another state of consciousness 
comes into existence, because he enters into relation to 
a different order of things. "The principle, carrying 
memory, emerges from the brain, and every event of 
the life which is ebbing away, is reviewed by the mind. 
Picture after picture presents itself with living vividness 
before his consciousness, and he lives in a few minutes 
his whole life again. Persons in a state of drowning 
have experienced that state. That impression which 
has been the strongest, survives all the rest; the other 
impressions disappear to reappear again in the devachanic 
state. No man dies unconscious, whatever external ap- 
pearances may seem to indicate to the contrary; even 
a madman will have a moment, at the time of his death, 
when his intellect will be restored. Those who are pres- 
ent at such solemn moments should take care not to 



UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 179 

disturb, by outbursts of grief or otherwise, that process 
by which the soul beholds the effects of the past and 
lays the plan for its future existence. 5 '* 

The process of the parting of the astral form from the 
physical remains is described by a clairvoyant as follows : 
"At first I saw a beautiful light of a pale blue colour, 
in which appeared a small egg-shaped substance about 
three feet above the head. It was not stationary, but 
wavered to and fro like a balloon in the air. Gradually 
it elongated to the length of the body, the whole envel- 
oped in a mist or smoke. I perceived a face correspond- 
ing in features to that which was so soon to be soulless, 
only brighter, more smooth, more beautiful, yet unfin- 
ished, with the same want of expression that we observe 
in a new-born infant. With every breath from the dy- 
ing body the ethereal form was added to and became 
more perfect. Presently the feet became defined, not 
side by side, as the dying man had placed himself, but 
one hanging below the other, and one knee bent, as new- 
born infants would be in an accidental position. The 
body appeared to be enshrouded in a cloudlike mist. 
A countless host of other presences seemed to be near. 
When the whole was complete, all slowly passed out 
of sight."f 

This ethereal body is the soul-body or perisprit of the 
person, that died. It is not the spirit itself, but still con- 
nected with the spirit, as it was connected with it during 
life. It still contains the good and even tendencies which 
it acquired during life, unless its attraction towards one 
pole or the other was already so great that a separation 
of the highest principles has taken place before physical 
death. The real man is an impersonal power, and his 
existence does not depend on a physical form, he only 
acquires such a form to manifest his activity on the 
lower planes. If his spirit rises above the attractions of 
his^ lower self, his lower self will be unconscious and 
disintegrate; but if he clings to his animal nature with 
a great intensity of desire, a centre of consciousness may 
become established therein, and its sense of personality 

* Extracted from the letter of an Adept. 
* ^. J. Davis describes a similar scene. 



180 MAGIC. 

still continue to exist for a while even after the physical 
body is dead. His soul will in such cases be a semi- 
conscious inhabitant of the Kama loca state. 

The time during which an astral corpse may remain in 
this state before it is entirely dissolved depends on the 
density and strength of its elements. It may differ from 
a few hours or days to a great many years. Man is 
made up of a great many living elements or principles, 
of which each one exists in its own individual state while 
they all receive their life from the spirit. When the 
spirit withdraws they become separated, while each re- 
tains for a while its own particular life in the same 
sense as a wheel which is once set into motion will con- 
tinue to run until after the force is exhausted, even if 
the original motive power is withdrawn. 

The remnant of a man in the Kama loca state is there- 
fore not the man, but an elementary part of him which 
may or may not be conscious that it exists. 

This Kama loca state is the "land of the shadows," the 
Hades of the ancient Greeks, and the "purgatory" of the 
Roman Catholic Church. Its inhabitants may or may 
not possess consciousness and intelligence, but the astral 
souls of average men and women possess no intelligence 
of their own; they can, however, be made to act in- 
telligently by the power of the Elementals, who infuse 
their own consciousness into them. Paracelsus says: 
"Men and women die every day, whose souls during their 
lives have been subject to the influence and guidance of 
Elementals. How much easier will it be for such Ele- 
mentals to influence the sidereal bodies of such persons 
and to make them act as they please, after their souls 
have lost the protection which their physical bodies af- 
forded ! They may use their soul-bodies to move physi- 
cal objects from place to place, to carry such objects from 
distant countries, and to perform other feats of a similar' 
kind that may appear miraculous to the uninitiated." 

The state of consciousness of the fourth principle 
(the animal soul) after the lower triad has become un- 
conscious and lifeless, therefore, differs widely in dif- 
ferent persons, according to the conditions that have 
been established during its connection with the body. 



UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 181 

The soul of an average person in Kama loca with oniy 
moderate selfish desires is not conscious and intelligent 
enough to know that its physical body has died, and 
that it is itself undergoing the process of disintegration; 
but the soul of a person whose whole consciousness was 
centered in self, chained to earth by fear, remorse, greed, 
or desire for revenge,* may be conscious and intelligent 
enough to make desperate efforts to enter again into 
physical life. Feeling its impending fate, seeking to 
prolong its existence, it clings for protection to the organ- 
ism of some living being, and causes obsession. Not only 
weak-minded human beings but also animals may be 
subject to such obsession. 

To a body without sensation or consciousness it can 
make no difference under what conditions it may con- 
tinue to exist or perish, because it cannot realise its 
existence; but to a soul in which the divine spark of 
intelligence coming from the sixth principle has kindled 
consciousness and sensation, its surrounding conditions 
will be of importance, because it realises them more or 
less fully according to the degree of its consciousness. 
Such surroundings, in the state after death, each man 
creates for himself during life by his thoughts, his words, 
and his acts. Man is creating all his life the world where- 
in he will live in the hereafter. 

Thought is substantial and objective to those who live 
on the plane of thought. Even on the physical plane 
every form that exists is materialised thought, grown or 
made into a form; the world of the souls is a world in 
which thought itself appears material and solid to those 
who exist in that world. Man is a centre from which con- 
tinually thought is evolved, and crystallises into forms 
in that world. His thoughts are things that have life 
and form and tenacity; real entities, solid and more 
enduring than the forms of the physical plane. Good 
thoughts are light and rise above us, but evil thoughts 
are heavy and sink. The world below us to which they 
sink is the sphere of the grossest, most diseased, and 
sensual thoughts evolved by evil-disposed and ignorant 

* Chinamen kill themselves for the purpose of fastening their soul 
upon an enemy and taking- revenge. Let those who "know" that this is 
a superstition try the experiment. 



182 MAGIC. 

men. It is a world still more material and solid to its 
inhabitants than ours is to us; it is the habitation of 
man-created personal deities, devils, and monstrosities 
invented by the morbid imagination of man. 

They are only the products of thoughts, but neverthe- 
less they are relatively real and substantial to those who 
live among them and realise their existence. The myths 
of hell and purgatory are based on ill-understood facts. 
"Hells" exist, but man is himself their creator. Brutal 
man creates monsters by the working of his diseased 
imagination during life; disembodied man will be at- 
tracted to his creations. There are few persons who are 
not subject to evil thoughts; such thoughts are the reflex 
of the lurid light from the region of folly, but they 
cannot take form unless we give them form by dwelling 
on them and feeding them with the substance of our own 
will. Love is the life of the good, malice the substance 
of evil. An evil thought, evolved without consent of 
the heart, is without life; an evil thought, brought into 
existence with malice, becomes malicious and living. If 
it is embodied in an act, a new devil will be born into 
the world. The horrors of hell exist only for those who 
have been conscious, voluntary, and malicious colaborers 
of the imagination, peopling the mind with the products 
of fancy; the beauties of heaven are only realised by 
him who has created a heaven within himself during 
his life. 

Pain is only caused if a being exists under abnormal 
conditions. Allegorically speaking, devils do not suf- 
fer in hell, because they are there in their own natural 
element; they would suffer if they had to enter into 
heaven. A man suffers if his head is kept under water; 
a fish suffers if he is taken out of the water. 

We can only be conscious of the existence of things, 
if a relation exists between ourselves and these things. 
A person who has created nothing during life that could 
have established a conscious relationship with his im- 
mortal self will have nothing immortal with which to 
remain in relation with after death. If his whole at- 
tention is taken up by his physical wants, the sphere 
of his consciousness during life will be confined to those 



UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 183 

material wants. When he leaves his -material habitation 
material wants will no longer exist for him, and his 
consciousness of them ceases. Having created nothing 
in his soul that can enter into relation with his own 
spirit, his soul will neither lose that which it never 
possessed nor gain that which it never desired, but 
remain a blank. Death will clear away that which 
hinders our spiritual perception of truth ; but it can- 
not enable us to develop that power. If we hire a 
priest or a professor to do our thinking for us, and to 
be guardian of our knowledge and spiritual aspirations, 
we create no spiritual aspirations or living thoughts for 
ourselves. If we are contented to live in the opinions 
of others, we have no truth of our own. The artificial 
consciousness, which has thus been created by the illusive 
reflection of the thought of others on the mirror of the 
individual mind, has no roots in the spiritual soul, and 
mere opinions have no immortal existence. Those 
minds which have been fed on illusions will have no 
substance after the illusions have passed away. The 
only knowledge which can remain with the soul is that 
which it loves and knows and is itself. 

"Whatever thou lovest, man, that too, become you must, 
God, if thou lovest God; — dust, if thou lovest dust." 

Angelus Silesius. 

Every cause is followed by an effect. Illusions that 
have been created in the mind are forces that must 
become exhausted before they can die. They will con- 
tinue to act in the subjective state and produce other 
illusions by the law of harmony that governs the as- 
sociation of ideas, and all illusions will end in the sphere 
to which they belong. Selfish desires will end in the 
sphere of self, unselfish aspirations and thoughts will 
bring their own rewards if they were good, and their 
own punishment if they were evil. But after all the 
good and evil thoughts have been exhausted in Kama 
loca and Devachan, there can be left nothing of the in- 
dividual but the self-consciousness of his spirit, that 
existed during his life in the innermost sanctuary of 
his heart. If no such consciousness existed, if there 
was nothing in him to cause him to feel his own divine 



184 MAGIC. 

nature, the presence of truth, there will be nothing left 
but a blank, an empty mind, to become reincarnated for 
.the purpose of trying again to attain the knowledge of 
self. Death is a transformation or change of conditions 
under which we exist. Our desires for things change as 
the conditions under which we exist assume a different 
character. Before we are born our state of life depends 
on the state of the mother's womb; but having been 
born into the world, we care nothing more for that 
which furnished us with nutriment and life during our 
foetal existence. Being infants, our interests are centered 
upon the breasts of the mother, but these breasts are 
forgotten after we need them no more. Things which 
absorbed the whole of our consciousness during our 
youth are discarded as we grow older. If we throw off 
the physical body, the desire for that which was attrac- 
tive to it and important for its existence is thrown off 
with it, or perishes soon afterwards. 

But if the soul again approaches the material plane, 
and again enters into relationship with it, the old con- 
sciousness and the old desires, that were gone to sleep, 
reawaken, and its physical sensations return, but vanish 
again after the influence of the medium is withdrawn. 
The "Elementary" then relapses in his unconscious 
state.* 

There are innumerable varieties of conditions and 
possibilities in the world of spirit and on the astral 
plane, as there are upon the physical plane. If the mind 
begins to investigate these things separately, and with- 
out understanding the fundamental laws of nature upon 
which such phenomena are based, it may as well despair 
of ever being able to form a correct conception of them. 
If a botanist were to examine separately each one of the 
thousands of leaves of a large tree which he has never 
seen, for the purpose of finding out the true nature of 
that tree, he would never arrive at an end; but if he 
once knows the tree as a whole, the colour and shape 
of the individual leaves will be of secondary importance. 
If we once arrive at a correct conception of the spiritual 

* The non-remembering of previous appearances is an essential 
feature in returning ghosts. 



UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 185 

nature of man, it will be easy to follow the various rami- 
fications of the one universal law. 

There is no death for that which is perfect, but the 
imperfect must perish sooner or later. So-called deatft 
is simply a process of elimination of that which is use- 
less. In this sense we all are continually dying every 
day, and even wishing to die, because every reasonable 
person desires to get rid of his imperfections and their 
consequences and the sufferings which they cause. No 
one is afraid to lose that which he does not want, and if 
he clings to that which is useless, it is because he is un- 
conscious and ignorant of that which is useful. In such 
a case he is already partly dead to that which is good, 
and must come to life and learn to realise that which 
is useful, by dying to that which is useless. This is the 
so-called mystic death, by which the enlightened come 
to life, which involves the unconsciousness of worthless 
and earthly desires and passions, and establishes a con- 
sciousness of that which is immortal and true. The 
reason why men and women are sometimes afraid to die 
is because they mistake the low for the high, and prefer 
material illusions to spiritual truths. We ought not to 
live in the fear of death ; but in the hope of coming to 
life. There is no death for the perfect, and the dead in 
life must throw away their imperfectness, so that that 
which is perfect in him may become conscious and live. 
This mystic death is recommended by the wise as being 
the supreme remedy against real death. This mystic 
death is a spiritual regeneration.* 

Hermes Trismegistus says : "Happy is he whose vices 
die before him;" and the great teacher Thomas de 
Kempis writes: "Learn to die now to the world" (to 
the attraction of matter), "so that you may begin to 
live with Christ;" and Angelus Silesius writes: "Christ 
rose not from the dead, he is still in the grave for those 
who do not know him." The true and only saviour of 
every man or woman is the self-knowledge of divine 
truth. 

A person whose vices have died during his earthly life 
does not need to die again. His sidereal body will dis- 

* John iii, 3. 



186 MAGIC. 

solve like a silver cloud, being unconscious of any 
desires for that which is low, and his spirit will be fully 
conscious of that which is beautiful, harmonious, and 
true-, but he, whose conscience is centered in the pas- 
sions that have raged in his soul during life, can realize 
nothing higher than that which was the highest to him 
during his life, and cannot gain any other consciousness 
by the process of death. Physical death is no gain, it 
cannot give us that which we do not already possess. 
Unconsciousness cannot confer consciousness, ignorance 
cannot give knowledge. By the mystic death we arrive 
at life and consciousness, knowledge and happiness, 
because the awaking of the higher elements to life im- 
plies the death of that which is useless and low. "Neither 
circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth, but a new 
creature."* 

There are Esprits soufrantes, our suffering souls. They 
are the "revenants" or "restants," the astral bodies of 
victims of premature death, whose physical forms have 
perished before their time. They remain within the 
attraction of the Earth until the time arrives that 
should have been the termination of their physical lives 
according to the law of their Karma. They are under 
normal conditions, not fully conscious of the conditions 
in which they exist; but they may be temporarily stim- 
ulated into life by the influence of mediumship. Then 
will their half -forgotten desires and memories return 
and cause them to suffer. To rouse such existences from 
their stupor into a realisation of pain for the purpose 
of gratifying idle curiosity is cruel, and very injurious 
to such irrational souls, as it reawakens their thirst for 
life and for the gratification of earthly desires. 

The soul of the same suicide, however, or that of a 
malicious person, may be fully conscious and realize the 
situation in which it is placed. Such shadows wander 
about earth, clinging to material life, and vainly trying 
to escape the dissolution by which they are threatened. 
Partly bereft of reason, and following their animal in- 
stincts, they may become Incubi and Succubi, Vampires 
stealing life from the living to prolong their own exist- 

* Galat. vi. 15. 



UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 187 

ence, regardless of the fate of their victims. The soul- 
bodies of the dead may be either unconsciously or con- 
sciously attracted to mediums for the purpose of con- 
municating with the living. By using the astral emana- 
tions of the medium they sometimes become materialised, 
visibly and tangibly, and appear like the deceased person 
himself. But if a deceased person was in possession of 
high aspirations and virtues, his soul-corpse will not be 
the actual entity which it represents, although it may 
act in some respect as the person whose mask it wears. 
If one blows into a trumpet it will give the sound of a 
trumpet and no other. The soul-corpse of a good per- 
son, if infused artificially with life, will produce the 
thoughts it used to produce during life; but there needs 
to be no more of the identity of that person in the corpse 
than there is the identity of a friend in a phonograph. 

The revelations made by such "spirits" are the echoes 
of their former thoughts, or of thoughts impressed 
upon them by the living, as a mirror reflects the faces 
of those that stand before it. They do not give us a 
true description of the spirit's condition in the world of 
souls, because they are themselves ignorant of that 
condition. At the time when Plato was living, such 
souls returned, giving descriptions of Hades and of the 
deities that were believed to exist in that place. At 
the present day the souls of Roman Catholics will return 
and ask for masses to be relieved from purgatory, while 
the Protestants refuse to be benefited by the ceremonies 
of the Catholic Church. The souls of dead Hindus ask 
sometimes for the performance of sacrifices to their 
gods, and every such "spirit" is domineered by those 
ideas in which he believed during his life. The discrep- 
ancy in their reports prove that their tales are only the 
products of the imagination of the irrational soul.* 

If man has a "spirit" that spirit must be immortal, 

* We do not deny the occurrence of so-called spiritual phenomena; 
and we are not opposed to "spiritualism;" but we are opposed to the mis- 
understanding: of it. We believe in Spiritualism as belonging to the 
department of natural science and as having been very useful in over- 
throwing the blind materialism of the past. We also make a distinc- 
tion between Spiritualism, which implies Spirituality and ennobling ele- 
vation of soul, and Spiritism, which consists in dealing with the in- 
habitants of the Astral plane, an intercourse whose dangers are un- 
fortunately not sufficiently known. 



188 MAGIC. 

but a man is not immortal if he does not realise the 
presence of the immortal spirit in him. Having become 
conscious in man, it cannot become unconscious again, 
because it is self-existent and independent of all con- 
ditions but those which it creates itself. In him who 
is, the consciousness of the / Am is indestructible, be- 
cause it exists in the absolute eternal One. If that con- 
sciousness were to perish, the world would perish with 
it, because in the consciousness of the / Am the world 
came into existence, and by its power does it continue 
to exist. Its consciousness upholds the world, its un- 
consciousness would be annihilation, but that which 
not truly is cannot have the true consciousness of being; 
it may at best fancy to be. It exists ; but as an illusion 
and not in truth. The object of man's life is to become 
conscious that He is — not an illusive personal form — but 
an impersonal, immortal reality, to render the uncon- 
scious spirit conscious and enable the immortal soul to 
realise its own immortality; the object of death is to 
release that which is conscious from that which is un- 
conscious, and to free the immortal from the bonds of 
matter. 

The tree of life grows and produces a seed, and this 
seed has to be planted again, to grow into a tree and 
produce another seed, and this process will have to be re- 
peated over and over again, until at last the soul slumber- 
ing in the seed awakens to the realisation of its immortal 
life. Unconscious of any relation to personalities, uncon- 
scious of its own self, it will be attracted to such condi- 
tions as may be best suited for its further development, 
as its Karma decides. It will be attracted to overshad- 
ow a man whose moral and intellectual tendencies and 
qualities correspond to its own, careless whether it 
enters the world as a new-born babe through the door 
of the hut of a beggar or through the palace of a 
king. It does not care for its future conditions, because 
it is unconscious of their existence. The unconscious 
spiritual monad, descending into the lower plane, gather- 
ing again the elements which belonged to the previous 
man of earth, building again the thought body which it 
had created in former lives and which constituted its 



UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 189 

terrestrial character, and entering again into connection 
with a human physical organism, is born once more into 
the world of sorrow, builds up the house of flesh, and 
takes up once more the battle with life, the strife with 
its lower nature, to make a step forward and come nearer 
to God. 

Thus a man that reigned as a king in a former incar- 
nation may be reborn as a beggar, if his character was 
that of a beggar; and a liberal beggar may create as his 
future successor a king or a being of noble birth. Both 
act without freedom of choice at the time of their visit 
to the Earth, following unconsciously their Karma. But 
the Adept, who knows his own real self and has learned 
to realize his immortal existence, will be his own master. 
He has grown above the sense of personality, and there- 
by gained immortal consciousness during his earthly 
life. He has thrown away his lower self, and death can- 
not rob him of that which he no longer possesses and to 
which he attaches no value. Being conscious of his 
existence and of the conditions under which he exists, 
he may follow his own choice in the selection of a 
body, if he chooses to reincarnate, either for the benefit 
of humanity or for his own progression. Having en- 
tirely overcome the attractions of Earth, he is truly free. 
He is dead and unconscious to all earthly temptations, 
but conscious of the highest happiness attainable by man. 
The delusion of the senses can fashion for him no other 
tabernacle to imprison his soul, and before him lies open 
the road to eternal rest in Nirvana.* 

If a person has once attained spiritual self-knowledge 
he will not need to follow the blind law of attraction 
but he will be able to choose the body and the conditions 
most suitable to him. He may then reincarnate him- 
self in the body of a child, or in the body of a grown 
person, whose soul has been separated by disease or 

* But now, thou builder of the tabernacle, thou! 
I know thee! Never shalt thou build again 
These walls of pain, 

Nor raise the roof-tree of deceits, nor lay 
Fresh rafters on the clay. 

Broken thy house is, and the ridge-pole split! 
Delusion fashioned it. 
Save pass I thence. Deliverance to obtain. 

Edwin Arnold: "The Light of Asia." 



190 MAGIC. 

accident from the body, and that person will thus be 
brought to life again, if no vital organ is too seriously 
injured, to carry on the functions of life again. Cases 
are known in which a certain person apparently died, 
and finally came to life again, when from that time 
he appeared to be an entirely different man; he may 
have died as a ruffian and after his recovery become 
suddenly like a saint, so that such a sudden change 
appeared inexplicable on any other theory than that an 
entirely different character had taken possession of his 
body. Such people may, after their recovery takes place, 
speak a language they never learned, talk familiarly of 
things they never saw; call people by their names, of 
which they never heard, know all about places, where 
their physical bodies never have been, &c, &c. If phe- 
nomena could prove anything, such occurrences might 
go to prove the theory of the reincarnation of living 
adepts. 

"Shall we know our loved ones after death?" is a 
question which is often asked, and which answers itself 
if the true nature of the "Ego" is known. In all planes 
rules the law of harmony, and like is attracted to like; 
but an illusion can only know illusions. We do not 
know each other in this life, if we have not the knowl- 
edge of our own self. 

He who, having become self-conscious of his own 
spiritual nature, knows his own real self, may rise up 
in his soul to the planes of the blessed, and by entering 
their individual spheres join their own happiness and 
partake of their joys ; but the souls dreaming in heaven, 
being immersed in bliss, do not descend and join in the 
circus of life, before the time of their reincarnation ar- 
rives. Such a descent would be degradation. Heaven 
does not descend to earth ; but if earth ascends to heaven 
it becomes heaven itself. 

To die is to become unconscious in relation to certain 
things. If we become unconscious of a lower state, and 
thereby become conscious of a higher existence, such a 
change cannot properly be called death. If we become 
unconscious of a higher condition, and thereby enter a 
lower one, such a change is followed by degradation, and 



UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 191 

therefore degradation is the only death to be feared. 
Degradation takes place if a human faculty is employed 
for a lower purpose than that for which it was by nature 
intended. Degradation of the most vulgar, the lowest 
material type takes place, if the organs of the physical 
body are used for villainous purposes, and disease, 
atrophy, and death are the common result. A higher 
and still more detrimental and lasting degradation takes 
place if the intellectual faculties are habitually used for 
selfish and degrading purposes. In such cases the in- 
tellect, that ought to serve as a basis for spiritual as- 
pirations, becomes merged with matter, its conscious- 
ness is bound down to the plane of materiality and 
selfishness, and becomes inactive in the region of spirit- 
uality. The lowest and most enduring degradation takes 
place if man, having reached a state in which his person- 
ality has, to a certain extent, merged with his impersonal 
I, degrades his spiritual self by employing the powers 
which such an amalgamation confers for villainous pur- 
poses of a low character. Such are the practices of black 
magic. A person who, for want of any better under- 
standing, employs his intellectual faculties for his own 
selfish purposes, regardless of the principles of justice, 
is not necessarily a villain, but simply a fool. The mur- 
derer may commit a murder to save himself from being 
discovered of some crime, and not for the purpose of 
robbing another person of life. A thief may steal a 
purse for the purpose of enriching himself, and not for 
the purpose of rendering another man poor. Such 
acts are the result of ignorance; persons usually 
act evil for selfish purposes and not for the pure love 
of evil. Such acts are the result of personal feelings, 
and personal feelings cease to exist when the personality 
to which they belong ceases to exist. Such a personal 
existence ceases when his life on the lower plane ceases 
to act. The higher spiritual / of the man is neither 
a gainer nor loser on such an occasion, it remains the 
same as it was before the compound of forces represent- 
ing the late personality was born. 

The real villain, however, is he who performs evil for 
the love of evil without personal considerations. A] 



19a MAGIC 

person who is no more influenced by his sense of person- 
ality, and has attained spiritual knowledge, is a magician. 
Those who employ such a power for the purposes of evil 
have been called black magicians or Brothers of the 
Shadow, in the same sense as those who employ their 
spiritual powers for good purposes have been called 
Brothers of Light. The white magician is a spiritual power 
for good; the real black magician is a living power of 
evil attached to a personality that performs evil instinct- 
ively and for the love of evil itself. The power of evil 
may kill the man or the animal that never offended it, 
and by whose death it has nothing to gain, destroys for 
the love of destruction, causes suffering without expect- 
ing any benefit for itself, robs to throw away the spoils, 
revels in torture and death. Such an individuality at- 
tracts and calls to its aid other impersonal evil powers, 
which become a part of it, and which continue to exist 
after the personality ceases to live on the physical plane. 
Many incarnations may be needed before such a power 
will come into existence, but when it once lives it will 
perish as slow as it grew. "Angels," as well as "devils," 
are born into the world, and children with villainous 
propensities and malicious characters are not very rare. 
They are the products of such forces as in former in- 
carnations have developed a spiritual consciousness in 
the direction of evil. 

A power which may be employed for a good purpose, 
can also be used for an evil purpose. If we can by 
magnetism decrease the rapidity of the pulse of a fever- 
patient, we may also decrease it to such an extent, that 
the subject ceases to live. If we can force a person by 
our will to perform a good act, we may also force him 
to commit a crime. Everything is either good or evil 
according to the purpose for which it is used. 

It is unnecessary to enter into details in regard to 
the practices of Black Magic and Sorcery. It is more 
noble and useful to study how we can benefit mankind 
than to satisfy our curiosity in regard to the powers for 
evil. To show to what aberrations of mind a craving 
for the power of working black magic may lead, it may 
be mentioned that the would-be black magician and great 



UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 193 

vivisector, Gilles de Rays, marechal of France, and bet- 
ter known as "Blue Beard," who was executed for his 
crimes at Nantes, killed and tortured to death during a 
few years not less than one hundred and sixty women 
and children in the interest of his science, and for the 
purpose of gratifying his curiosity in regard to Black 
Magic. 

The white magician delights in doing good, the servant 
of the black art revels in cruelty. The former co-oper- 
ates with the Divine Spirit of Wisdom, the latter co-op- 
erates with certain spiritual forces of nature ; the former 
will be exalted in God and united with him; the latter 
wall ultimately be absorbed by the beings with which he 
has associated and which he called to his aid. 

To ennoble our character and to raise our conscious- 
ness into the spiritual plane is to live ; to let it sink to a 
lower level is to die. The natural order of the universe 
is that the high should elevate the low; but if the high 
is made to serve the low, degradation is the result. Every- 
where in the workshop of nature the high acts upon the 
low by the power of the highest. The highest itself can- 
not be degraded. Truth itself cannot be turned into 
falsehood, it can only be rejected or misapplied. Reason 
itself cannot be rendered foolish, it can only be misused 
by reasoning foolishly. The universal and impersonal 
cannot itself become limited, it can only come into con- 
tact with such personalities as are able to approach it. 
The Law does not suffer by breaking its connection with 
the form, the form alone suffers and dies. 

The truth is everywhere, seeking to manifest itself 
in the consciousness of man. Man's consciousness ro- 
tates between the two poles of good and evil, of spirit 
and matter. The omnipresent influence of the great 
spiritual Sun renders him strong to overcome the attrac- 
tion of matter, and assists him to come victorious out of 
the struggle with evil. Man is not entirely free as long 
as he is not in possession of perfect knowledge, which 
means, realisation of truth; but he is free to allow 
himself to be attracted by a love for the truth or to 
close his door against it. He may become united with 
the principle of wisdom, or he may sever his connection 



194 MAGIC. 

with it and sell his inherited rights to immortality for 
a comparatively worthless mess of pottage. The Centaur 
in his nature, whose lower principles are animal, while 
the upper parts are possessed of intellect, may carry 
away his spiritual aspirations and lull them into uncon- 
sciousness by the music of its illusions. 

Bodies may be comparatively long-lived, and some 
forms, compared with others, may be very enduring; 
but there is nothing permanent but the self-conscious- 
ness of love and the self-consciousness of hate. Love is 
light, and hate is darkness, and in the end love will 
conquer hate, because darkness cannot destroy light, and 
wherever light penetrates into darkness, there will love 
conquer, and evil and darkness will disappear. 




CHAPTER IX. 

TRANSFORMATIONS. 
"Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." — Rom. xii. 2. 

HP HE Universe is a manifestation of Divine Wisdom 
* and thought is an action of Mind. The Mind in 
which Wisdom can bring an universe into exist- 
ence must be an Universal Mind, embracing in its total- 
ity all the individual minds that ever existed, and con- 
taining the germs of everything that will ever come into 
existence. 

Ideas are states of mind, and the thoughts of the 
Universal Mind stored up in the Astral Light, after 
their representative forms have dissolved, grow again 
into visible forms, by being clothed with matter. 

Man remembers his thoughts; that is to say, he enters 
again into one of his previous mental states. To remem- 
ber a thing is to read it in the mind. The Astral Light 
is the book of memory, in which every thought is en- 
graved and every event recorded, and the more intense 
the thought the deeper will it be engraved, and the long- 
er will the picture remain. Thought is a force, and its 
products remain in the Astral Light long after the per- 
son who gave them form has ceased to live. As the 
images of things which exist in the Astral Light remain 
there for ages, they may be seen by the clairvoyant. 
Such images are formed of thought, and as thought is 
something substantial, it is even possible for the Occultist 

195 



196 MAGIC. 

to reproduce books, writings, &c., which have existed 
thousands of years ago. 

Men do not create thought; the ideas existing in the 
Astral Light flow into their minds, and where they 
transform themselves into other shapes, combining with 
other ideas, consciously or unconsciously, according to 
the laws that control the correlations, interrelations, 
and associations of thought. A great mind can grasp 
a great idea, a narrow mind is only capable of holding 
narrow ideas. Thoughts are existing things and are 
sometimes grasped contemporaneously by several recep- 
tive minds. Some great discoveries have been made 
almost simultaneously by several minds.* Ideas con- 
tained in the imagination of nature throw their reflections 
upon the minds of men, and, according to the capacities 
of the latter to receive ideas, they come to their con- 
sciousness, clear or distorted, plain or shadowy, like 
images of pictures reflected in living mirrors, that are 
either clear or rendered dim by the accumulation of 
dust. In those living mirrors they are remodelled and 
transformed into new pictures, to people the currents of 
the Astral Light with new images, and to give rise to 
new forms of thought. Therefore a spiritually strong 
person who lives in solitude and silence may do a great 
work, by evolving ideas, which will remain impressed 
upon the Astral Light and come to the cognisance of 
those who are capable to grasp them. 

The thoughts of men impress themselves upon the 
Astral Light, and every event that takes place on the 
physical plane is recorded in the memory of nature. 
Every stone, every plant, every animal as well as every 
man, has a sphere in which is recorded every event of 
its existence. They all have a little world of their own, 
made of thought, and whenever they move, they think; 
for their motions are motions of thought. In the Astral 
Light of each is stored up every event of its past history 
and of the history of its surroundings; so that every- 
thing, no matter how insignificant it may be, can give 
an account of its daily life, from the beginning of its 

* There are three claimants for the discovery of chloroform, two for 
the discovery of Uranus, two for the Bell telephone, &c. 



TRANSFORMATIONS. 197 

existence as a form up to the present, to him who is 
able to read. A piece of lava from Pompeii will give 
to the Psychometer a true description of the volcanic 
eruption that devastated that town and buried it under 
its ashes, where it remained hidden for nearly two thou- 
sand years ; a floating timber carried by the Gulf Stream 
to the far North can give to the inhabitants of the North 
a true picture of tropical life; and a piece of bone of a 
Mastodon teach the vegetable and animal life of antedi- 
luvian periods.* 

The pictures impressed in the Astral Light react upon 
the mental spheres of individual minds and can create 
In them emotional disturbances, even if these pictures 
do not come to the full consciousness of their minds. 
Deeds committed with a great concentration of thought 
call living powers in the Astral Light into existence, 
tempting others to commit similar acts.f 

Man does not know the influences which cause him to 
think and to act, as long as he does not know his own 
nature. He is therefore not a responsible being, except 
to the extent of his wisdom and power to control his 
own nature. Wisdom and strength can only be attained 
in life by experience and by the exercise of the power 
of overcoming temptation. 

If the true nature of the constitution of man were 
properly understood, capital punishment would soon be 
abandoned as perfectly useless, unjust, and contrary to 
the law of nature. That which commits a murder or 
any other crime is a conscious and invisible power, 
which cannot be killed and which does not improve in 
character by being separated from its external form. 
The body is innocent, it is merely an instrument in the 
hands of the invisible culprit, the astral man. The face 
of even a criminal bears an expression of peace when 
the soul has departed. By severing the bonds between 

♦Prof. Wm. Denton: "Soul of Things." 

f A case is known, for instance, in which prisoner hung himself 
in his cell, and several other persons that were successively shut up in 
the same cell hung themselves also without any apparent cause. At 
another place a sentinel killed himself at his post, and several soldiers 
mounting guard after him did likewise, so that the post had to be 
deserted. Many similar examples may be cited. Crimes of a certain 
character often become epidemic in places where a criminal has been 
executed; murder becomes epidemic like measles or scarlatina. 



198 MAGIC. 

this vicious power and the physical form, we do not 
change its tendency to act evil; but while during the 
life of the body the action of that power was restricted 
to only one form, having been liberated, it now incites 
numerous other weak-minded people to perform the 
same crimes for which the body was executed. Thus 
by capital punishment evil is not abolished, but its sphere 
of action increased. As far as the theory of influencing 
other would-be criminals with fear, by making an exam- 
ple of one, and thus to prevent others from committing 
crimes, is concerned; it is well known that criminals do 
not look upon any punishment as being something which 
they have deserved for their deeds, but as being a con- 
sequence of having been so careless as to allow them- 
selves to be caught, and they usually make up their 
minds, that if they were permitted to escape, they would 
be more careful — not to be caught again. 

Life is a school through which every one must pass 
for the purpose of acquiring experience, strength of 
character, and self-knowledge. To rob a person of this 
opportunity is a great crime if it is done knowingly. 
The fool who kills another man has little responsibility, 
because he has no actual knowledge of the nature of his 
deed ; but the lawgiver who institutes legal murder is 
the true criminal. 

A lock of hair, a piece of clothing, the handwriting 
of a person or any article he may have touched, handled, 
or worn, can indicate to an intuitive mind that person's 
state of health, his physical, emotional, intellectual, and 
moral attributes and qualifications. The picture of a 
murderer may be impressed on the retina of his victim, 
and reproduced by means of photography ; it is impressed 
on all the surroundings of the place where the deed 
occurred, and can there be detected by the psychometer 
who, thus coming en rapport with the criminal, can follow 
him and hunt him down just as the bloodhound traces 
the steps of a fugitive slave.* 

This tendency of the Astral Light to inhere in m&te- 

* Emma Hardinge Britten: "Ghost Land." The case cited in this 
book, in which a clairvoyant followed the tracks of a murderer through 
several towns and caught him at last, is quoted in several German 
publications of the last century. 



TRANSFORMATIONS. 199 

rial bodies gives amulets their power and invests keep- 
sakes and relics with certain occult properties. A ring, 
a lock of hair, or a letter from a friend, can not only 
conjure up that friend's picture in a person's memory, 
but bring him en rapport with the peculiar mental state 
of which that person was or is a representation. If you 
wish to forget a person, or free yourself from his mag- 
netic attraction, part from everything that reminds you 
of him, or select only such articles as call up disagreeable 
memories and are therefore repulsive. Articles belonging 
to a person bring us in sympathy with that person, and 
this circumstance is sometimes used for purposes of 
black magic. 

Paracelsus in his writings about the Mumia and the 
transplantation of diseases gives many illustrations of 
this theory. The existence of a power, by which a disease 
may be transferred upon a healthy person, even in "non- 
contagious" cases, by means of some article belonging to 
the sick person, is generally believed in by the people 
in various countries. It must, however, be remembered 
that in making such experiments the success depends on 
the amount of "faith" which the magician can employ. 
Without that faith, which is soul-knowledge, nothing 
can be accomplished in any department of life. 

As every form is the representation of a certain men- 
tal state, every object has such attributes as always belong 
to that state, and therefore every substance has its sym- 
pathies and its antipathies; the loadstone attracts iron, 
and iron the oxygen of the air; hygroscopic bodies at- 
tract water, affinities exist between certain bodies, some 
substances change their colours under certain coloured 
rays, while others remain unaffected, &c. These phe- 
nomena are all nothing else but the various manifesta- 
tions of the One Life in which the principle of Love is 
active and seeks to unite whatever is harmonious. 

Every material object is condensed and solidified force. 
Looked at in this light, it does not seem impossible 
that the ancients should have attributed certain virtues 
to certain precious stones, and believed that the Garnet 
was conducive to joy, the Chalcedony to courage, the 
Topaz promoting chastity, the Amethyst assisting reason, 



200 MAGIC. 

and the Sapphire intuition. A spiritual force, to be ef- 
fective, requires a sensitive object to act upon. In an 
age which tends to extreme materialism, spiritual influ- 
ence ceases to be perceived, but if a person cannot feel 
the occult influences of nature, it does not necessarily 
follow that they do not exist, and that there are not 
others able to perceive them because their impressional 
capacities are greater. 

Only the fool believes that he knows everything. What 
is really known is only like a grain of sand on the shore 
of the ocean in comparison to what is still unknown. 
Physiologists know that certain plants and chemicals 
have certain powers, and they explain their effects. 
They know that Digitalis decreases the quickness of the 
pulse by paralysing the heart; that Belladonna dilates 
the pupil by paralysing the muscular fibres of the Iris; 
that Opium in small doses produces sleep by causing 
anaemia of the brain, while large doses produce coma 
by causing congestion, &c. ; but why these substances 
have such effects, or why some chemical compound of 
Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, and Hydrogen is poisonous 
in one chemical combination, while the same substances, 
if combined in a different stcechiometrical proportion, 
may be used as food, neither chemistry nor physiology 
can tell us at present. If we, however, look upon all 
forms as symbols of mental states, it will not be more 
difficult to imagine why strychnine is poisonous, than 
why hate can kill, or fear paralyse the heart. 

A simple idea which is once firmly rooted in tb^ mind 
cannot be changed. If an idea is complicated it is less 
difficult to modify it in its details, so that gradually an 
entirely different compound will be the result. In phy- 
sical chemistry the law is analogous. Compound bodies 
may be easily changed into other combinations, but sin- 
gle bodies cannot be changed. There are, however, in- 
dications that even these so-called single bodies are the 
results of combinations of still more primitive elements. 
It has been observed that when lightning has struck 
gilded ornaments they have become blackened, and it has 
been found, on analysing the blackened matter, that the 
presence of sulphur was distinctly indicated. Unless 



TRANSFORMATIONS. 201 

sulphur exists in the lightning it must have existed in 
the gold, and have been evolved by the action of light- 
ning. We may then fairly assume that gold contains the 
elements of sulphur, and this is no anomaly in the case 
of gold, as other metals have also been proved to contain 
the elements of sulphur,* and the dreams of physical Al- 
chemy may have some foundation, after all. But sulphur 
is supposed to be related to nitrogen, and the elements 
of nitrogen are believed to be hydrogen and carbon, and 
if we go still further, we find that even on the physical 
plane all bodies are only modifications of one primordial 
element, which is not of a sufficiently material nature to 
be detected by physical means, and that in this primordial 
element the germs of all other secondary principles must 
be contained. 

The power to receive, preserve, and transform ideas, 
is the power of Will and Imagination. If an idea enters 
into the mind, the imagination clothes it into a form, 
with or without a conscious exercise of the will. We 
step upon a piece of rope in the dark and immediately 
imagine that we have stepped upon a snake. This is 
called passive imagination; while, if we determine to give 
a certain form to an idea, it is called active imagination; 
but in both cases the will is active; only in the former 
instance it is exercised instinctively, and in the latter this 
is done with intent and deliberation. 

The will is, therefore, the active power, and it forms 
the basis of all artistic and mapcal operations. Art and 
magic are closely related together; both give objective 
form to subjective ideas. The artist exercises this power 
when he mentally projects the picture formed in his mind 
upon the canvas and chains it there by the use of his pen- 
cil or brush; the sculptor shapes the picture of a form 
on his mind and embodies it in the marble. He then 
employs mechanical force to free the ideal from all that 
is foreign to it, and raises it from the tomb, a materialisa- 
tion of thought. In the regeneration of man the will is 
entirely inactive as far as the creation of an ideal is con- 
cerned ; but it is highly active in keeping away all the in- 
fluences which will prevent the realisation of the ideal. 

* David Low, F. R. S. E. : "Simple Bodies in Chemistry." 



202 MAGIC. 

God does not need the co-operation of man, his will alone 
is sufficient; he only requires that the will of man shall 
not prevent him in the performance of his work. The 
magician forms an image on his mind and makes it per- 
ceptible to others by projecting it into their mental 
spheres. Uniting his own mental sphere with theirs, 
they are made to participate of his imagination, and they 
see that as a reality what he chooses to fancy and think. 

By this law many of the feats performed by Indian 
fakirs can be explained. They cause tigers and elephants 
to appear before a multitude, by forming the images of 
such things in the sphere of their mind. What the 
spectators see on such occasions is nothing else but the 
thoughts of the conjuror, rendered objective and visible 
by the latter.* 

In the case of an artist mechanical labour executes the 
work; in the case of a magician, the will; but the great- 
est amount of labour will not enable a person who is not 
an artist to produce a real work of art, and the greatest 
concentration of thought will not enable a person who 
has no spiritual power to perform a true magical feat. 
The "will" to which we refer is a spiritual self-conscious 
power, unknown to modern psychology. A person may 
be an excellent anatomist and know nothing whatever 
about living spiritual principles; he may be a splendid 
chemist and know nothing whatever about Alchemy; he 
may have perfect control over the mechanical forces of 
nature acting on the physical plane and know nothing 
whatever about the chemistry of the soul. 

For this reason the mysteries of Alchemy will for ever 
remain mysteries to a scientist who has no spiritual 
power at his command. This spiritual power is the spir- 
itual will. Without this power he can only separate the 
substances of compound bodies and recombine them 
again as is done in Chemistry, but not employ the princi- 
ple of life. 

The processes of nature are alchemical processes; be- 
cause, without the principle of life acting upon the chem- 
ical substances of the earth, no growth would result. If 

* The fact, that what the spectators on such occasions believe to see 
does not actually take place, has been proved by means of photography. 



TRANSFORMATIONS. 203 

the force of attraction and repulsion were entirely equal, 
everything would be at a standstill. If growth and decay 
would go hand in hand, nothing could grow, because a 
cell would begin to decay as soon as it would begin to 
form. The chemist may take earth, and water, and air, 
and separate them into their constituent elements, 
and recombine them again, and at the end of his work he 
will be where he began. But the Alchemy of nature 
takes water, and earth, and air, and infuses into them the 
fire of life, forming them into trees and producing flowers 
and fruits. Nature could not give her life-imparting in- 
fluence to her children if she did not possess it; the chem- 
ist, having no life-principle at his command, or not know- 
ing how to employ it, cannot perform the wonders of 
Alchemy. The reason why we have at present very few 
alchemists, is because we have very few persons endowed 
with the life of the spirit. 

There are three aspects of Alchemy. It deals with 
the physical substances of things, more especially with 
their souls, and in its highest aspect with their spiritual 
centres. In its physical processes it requires physical 
means, and from the study of these modern chemistry 
has taken its rise. By the developed powers of his soul 
the Alchemist may act upon the souls of material sub- 
stances, and if he can change their qualities, the character 
of the physical form may be changed. If the spiritual 
"fire" is awakened within him, he attains the spiritual 
powers required to act upon the inferior elements. An 
insufficient degree of heat will not accomplish anything 
great: he must gradually attain within himself the fire 
of divine love until he becomes himself the Salamander, 
able to live in a light in which nothing impure can exist* 

Johannes Tritheim says: "The Spiritus Mundi re- 
sembles a breath, appearing at first like a fog and after- 
wards condensing like water. This 'water' (A'kasa) was 
in the beginning pervaded by the principle of life, and 

♦ H. P. Blavatsky says: "Everything 1 in this world of effects is 
made up of three principles and four aspects, each object has an 
objective exterior, a vital soul, and a divine spark of spiritual fire. By 
these principles nature acts, and in order to imitate nature, Kriyasakti 
(the creative will) must be developed in man. This spiritual power is 
also called the "Word," of which it is written that there is no need 
to seek it in distant places; "for it is close to you; it is ia your mouth 
and in your heart." 



204 MAGIC. 

light was awakened in it by the Hat of the eternal spirit. 

This spirit of light, called the soul of the world (the 
Astral Light), is a spiritual substance, which can be made 
visible and tangible by art; it is a substance, but being 
invisible, we call it spirit. This 'soul' or corpus is hidden 
in the centre of everything, and can be extracted by means 
of the spiritual fire in man, which is identical with the 
universal spiritual fire, constituting the essence of nature 
and containing the images and figures of the Universal 
Mind/; 

"This Light resides in the Water and is hidden as a 
Seed in all things. Everything that originated from 
the spirit of light is sustained by it, and therefore this 
spirit is omnipresent; the whole of nature would perish 
and disappear if it were removed from it; it is the prin- 
cipium of all things."* 

There were true Alchemists during the Middle Ages 
who knew how to extract that Seed from the soul-essence 
of the world, and there are some who have the power 
to perform that process to-day; but those who do not 
possess that power will not be inclined to admit the 
possibility of such facts. "It is an eternal truth, that 
without our secret magical fire nothing can be accom- 
plished in our art. The ignorant will not believe in it 
because they do not possess that fire, and without this 
all their labour is useless. Without that fire spirits can- 
not be bound, much less can they be acted upon by 
material fire."f 

Some of the more enlightened modern chemists do 
not deny the possibility that a metal may be transformed 
into another; but the most serious objections made 
against the ancient Alchemists is that their object was 
to make artificial material gold. Such objections are 
based upon an entire misconception of alchemistical 
terms. The sole circumstance that certain planetary 
constellations in the microcosm were of the utmost im- 
portance for the success of alchemical processes is suffi- 

* J. Tritheim: "Miraculosa," Chap. xiv. 

t "I am the Light and the Truth;" but he who spake these words 
and speaks them still, cannot be made the servant of those who are 
not themselves that Light; nor can any "Christian Scientist" turn him- 
self into a Christ by believing himself to be Christ. Real knowledge is 
attained by nothing less than experience. No one becomes a Christ 
unless the Christ becomes revealed in him. 



TRANSFORMATIONS. 205 

cient to show that the Alchemists experimented with the 
souls of things, of which their material forms are only 
the external representatives on the physical plane. Gold, 
the purest and most incorruptible metal, represented 
Spirit, Magnesia wisdom, and Calcinated Magnesia 
wisdom attained through suffering. Sulphur, Mercury, 
and Salt represent the trinity of all things, the fiery, 
watery, and material elements, and have nothing to do 
with material substances. They are essentially one, but 
threefold in their manifestation.* 

The most important alchemical work is the generation 
of man; it requires not only the chemical combination of 
physical substances, but involves the chemistry of the 
soul and an influence of the spirit, and all must harmo- 
monster and mental homunculus is to be the result. If 
niously act together, if a human being and not a human 

* Here we are about to divulge one of the secrets of Alchemy, the 
truth of which will, however, be self-evident. On a preceding page we 
have explained that in every atom of the body of man are contained 
all the principles which go to make up the whole organism of mam, 
with all its organs and functions; and likewise, in every atom of matter 
is contained a principle, which may grow into a whole universe of 
matter with its great variety of substances. A principle cannot be 
changed or transformed into another. Principles are eternal. Only 
the mode of their manifestation may be changed, and the basis of all 
material things, manifesting itself outwardly as iron or lead, may, under 
certain conditions, by changing the divine purpose of its existence, 
be made to manifest itself as silver or gold. The Alchemist does 
not create any new substance, he merely guides nature, and induces 
her to grow "the seeds of minerals," in the same sense as a gardener 
assists nature to grow the seeds of plants, and to develop them into 
flowers. The Alchemists, therefore, say: "We cannot make gold out 
of anything which is not gold. To make material gold, we must have 
spiritual gold; we can merely cause the spiritual gold which exists 
already to grow into a visible and material form. This process is 
taught by the science of Alchemy, but this science is necessarily 
incomprehensible to him who has not arrived at that stage of spiritual 
knowledge, in which he can exercise a spiritual will, and a "spiritual 
will" does not exist in a man whose will is not free of material or 
personal desires. As the gardener puts the seed into the ground, and 
supplies it with water and with the necessary temperature, likewise 
the Alchemist "waters" the seeds of the metals with spiritual influences 
proceeding from his own divine soul. If a true appreciation of these 
truths is arrived at, it will at once remove Alchemy from the realm 
of superstition, and bring it within the limits of an exact spiritual 
science. 

To answer the question whether or not any one ever succeeded in 
making gold grow in this manner, we will say that there is a German 
book in existence entitled, "Collection of historical accounts regarding 
some remarkable occurrences in the life of some still living Adepts." 
It was printed in 1780; and among many most interesting anecdotes 
about successful attempts of making gold grow, there are copies of 
the legal documents and decisions of the court at Leipzig in regard 
to a case where, during the absence of the Count of Erbach in the 
year 1715, an Adept visited the countess in the castle of Tankerstein, 
and out of gratitude for an important service which had been rendered 
to him by the countess, he transformed all the silver she had into 
gold. When the count returned, who, as it seems, kept his own 
property separate from that of his wife, he claimed that gold for 
himself, appealing to a certain statute of the law, according to which, 



206 MAGIC. 

the rules of Alchemy were better understood and adhered 
to, scrofula, cancers, syphilis, tuberculosis, and other 
inherited diseases would disappear, and a strong and 
healthy generation of men and women would be the 
result. 

The great alembic in which the passions of men are 
purified and transformed is the mind. The true magic 
fire, without which nothing useful can be accomplished, 
is his self-conscious love, in other words, spiritual recog- 
nition of self. Man does not create or originate a 
thought. Ideas are already in existence. He does not 
invent ideas, the ideas are already present; he can only 
collect, elaborate, and modify their expressions. We can- 
not imagine anything that does not exist, we can only 
make new combinations of that which is already in ex- 
istence. We may imagine a snake with a head of a man, 
because snakes and men do exist ; but we cannot imagine 

treasures discovered upon or below the surface of a certain piec* 
of land belong to the proprietor of that territory; but the court decided 
that as the material (the silver) out of which the gold had been made 
belonged legally to the countess, consequently this gold could not 
be classified as a hidden treasure, and did not come within the reach 
cf that statute. The count thereupon lost his case, and his wife was 
permitted to keep the gold. 

We have reasons to believe in the genuineness of these documents; 
end if looked at from the standpoint of Occultism, it does not at 
all seem improbable that gold can be made in that manner. More- 
over, we have some personal experience to support our belief; for 
there lived about ten years ago a person whose name was Prestel, 
T/ithin a short distance of the town where we are now writing, who 
was a reputed Rosicrucian and Alchemist. We personally knew this 
man, and are well acquainted with two of his still living disciples. 
This man was generally known as an eccentric and mysterious person. 
He possessed great powers of projecting the images formed in his 
own mind upon the minds of others, so that they believed to see 
things which, however, had no objective existence. For instance 
he was once waylaid by an enemy, and as the latter bounced upon 
him, he caused him to see a terrible sight of a scaffold and an execu- 
tioner, so that the person was terrified and ran away; and it was 
not Prestel who told this story, but the man himself who attacked 
him: the former kept silent about it. 

Now, this man was not a full-fledged Alchemist, and could not 
make gold and the Elixir of Life, because, as he said, he could not 
find a woman sufficiently pure, and the same time willing, to assist 
him in his labours; for, as it is known to all Alchemists, it requires 
the co-operation of the male and the female element to accomplish 
the highest process. This person could therefore not make pure 
gold; but he could change the nature of metals so that they would 
obtain certain chemical qualities, differing from substances of the 
same kind. He could, so to say, ennoble metals, so that, for Instance, 
Iron or Brass would not rust if exposed to air and water; and we are 
now in possession of a Rosicrucian Cross made of brass, which, 
although it is over twenty years old, and has been exposed to saU*- 
water air, and to climates where every other inferior metal rusts, is 
still as bright as it has been when first received, and it never needed 
any cleaning or polishing. 

This person also had the power to cause combustible substances to 
become incombustible, and he could perform many of the alchemical 
processes described in the books of T. Tritheim, abbot of Spandau. 
He insisted that he could have made himself to live a thousand years, 
if he had found a suitable person to assist him in his alchemical work. 



TRANSFORMATIONS. 207 

the form of an inhabitant of the Sun, because we have 
no conception of the forms that may be existing under 
conditions of which we have no experience, and which 
therefore do not exist for us. 

If — as some modern physiologists believe — thoughts 
were a secretion of the brain, as the bile is a secretion 
of the liver, a thought would be lost as soon as it was 
expressed, and we would have to wait for the brain to 
recuperate its power, and to form and secrete another 
one like it again before we could have twice the same 
thought. We would have to be careful not to express 
our thought or impart our knowledge to others, as by 
doing so it would be lost to ourselves. Verily, if we 
seek for absurdities, we need not look for them in ancient 
books on Alchemy, but find them sufficiently represented 
in the works of modern scientific authorities. 

Thoughts and ideas are entities, and exist independent- 
ly of the perception of man; they do not need man for 
their existence, but man needs them to enable him to 
think. Thoughts and ideas, set in motion by the Will, 
move through space ; a thought set in motion in the Astral 
Ether resembles the expanding ripples upon the surface 
of a lake; a thought projected to a certain destination by 
the power of an Adept may be compared to an electric 
current passing with lightning-velocity through space. 
Thoughts directed towards an object are like a mountain 
stream rushing towards that object, and if the wills of 
several persons combine to direct it, it grows in exten- 
sion and force, provided their wills are single-minded and 
without any secondary designs.* If a mountain stream 
strikes a rock, whose resistance it cannot conquer and 
which it cannot pass, the waters will swell into a lake, 
devastating the shore and surging back towards its 
source. If a thought-current cannot enter the sphere of 
mind of the individual towards whom it is directed, it 
rebounds upon the mind of the individual from whom 
the impulse came. A person who concentrates the full 
power of a malicious thought upon another may, if he 
fails to succeed, be killed by the energy which he has 
called into action. 

* This law is said to be well known to certain "Jesuits" and 
employed for the purpose of influencing minds at a distance. 



208 MAGIC. 

An illustration of this law may be seen when a person 
dies of grief on account of disappointment. The ray of 
force continually projected by long and intense desire, 
unable to accomplish its purpose, returns to the heart, 
producing a sudden revulsion of feeling; it changes love 
into grief, attraction into repulsion, desire into contempt, 
it may cause. sickness and death. 

Light travels through the air with a velocity of over 
180,000 miles per second; thoughts pass with a similar 
velocity through space. A ray of light is seen to flash 
through the air and is intercepted by some non-conduct- 
ing material. An idea flashes through space and is inter- 
cepted by a receptive mind. A sound is heard by an in- 
definite number of persons, and an idea may affect the 
world. As a pebble thrown into water produces con- 
centric waves, which grow wider and wider, but less dis- 
tinct as distance increases, so a thought affects some per- 
son, and spreading from that centre creates a ripple in 
the family, the town, the country, or all over the world. 

A biogenesis of thought-infections and mental epide- 
mics might be written. To such an investigation would 
belong the histories of all great reformations originating 
from some central idea ; also the history of the crusades, 
the flagellants, the inquisition, mediaeval witchcraft, and 
modern materialism, and the absurdities of fashion. 

To give presupposes the ability to receive. The pos- 
sibility to impress a thought upon another mind presup- 
poses the ability of that mind to receive that impression. 
A person who is sufficiently sensitive and in a passive 
condition, will without difficulty be brought under the 
control of the will of another, and be made to act uncon- 
sciously in obedience to that will. A sleeping person may 
be impressed with such dreams as another may call up in 
his imagination, by projecting a picture formed in his 
mind into the mind of the sleeper ; a person in a mesmeric 
trance may have his imagination identified with that of 
the person who mesmerised him, and be made to comply 
implicitly with the will of the master. 

We see in everyday life that one person subjects 
another one to his will and causes him to obey his com- 
mands without putting him to sleep, and even his com- 



TRANSFORMATIONS. 209 

expressly stating a wish. A genera! does not need to 
hypnotise his soldiers to make them obey his orders. The 
difference between such an obedient person and one in 
the hypnotic sleep is merely that the former will not and 
the latter cannot resist. 

An impulse created by the will continues until the 
energy is exhausted. If the first impulse is followed by 
a series of others acting in the same direction, the effect 
will be correspondingly greater, and one person may 
affect the thoughts of another at a distance of thousands 
of miles by continually directing his thoughts upon him. 

It would be impossible to move inanimate bodies at a 
distance by the mere power of will, if there were no 
substantial contact between such objects and the person 
who attempts to move them. Nevertheless such move- 
ments take place, and prove that there must be a con- 
tact of some kind, even if it is an invisible one. The 
A'kasa furnishes that contact, and the developed will- 
power of a person may act through the substance of his 
soul upon the soul of the object, and set that object in 
motion. In this way tables may be made to talk and 
bells be made to ring. This, however, cannot be accom- 
plished by everybody ; to accomplish this an astral organ- 
ism is required, and it can therefore be done only by such 
persons as have their astral body developed and are ca- 
pable to use its organs at will.* 

The thoughts and consciousness of a person or of a 
number of persons may be projected and concentrated 
upon any object or to any place that exists within the 
sphere of their minds. It may be made to inhere in 
material objects by entering their astral elements and pro- 
ducing corresponding vibrations. Plants or precious 
stones may be brought in this manner into sympathetic 
relation with persons, so that if the person is sick or dies, 
the plants wither and the stones lose their brilliancy. No 
object in nature is entirely inanimate, and the life-prin- 

* H. P. Blavatsky writes In a private letter to the author: "I 
proved that all that mediums can do through 'spirits,' others could do 
at will without any 'spirits'; that the ringing of bells, thought-reading, 
raps, and physical phenomena could be achieved by anyone who had 
the faculty of acting in his physical body through the organs of the 
astral body, and I had that faculty ever since I was four years old. 
I could make furniture move and objects fly apparently, and by my 
astral arms that supported them, which remained invisible; ail this 
before I even knew of the Masters." 



210< MAGIC. 

ciple is the same in all, whether it be a man or a stone; 
only the state of their activities differ. If we can induce 
corresponding vibrations in the souls of a lower order of 
life, their life will be united with us, because all individ- 
ual forms are only centres in which the Universal Mind 
has crystallised into forms, and all forms are related to- 
gether and bound together by the universal cement of 
Love. A bird may drop down dead when its mate is 
killed, a mother may feel the pain of an accident happen- 
ing to her child, twin-brothers have been known to have 
become affected simultaneously with the same disease 
and to die at the same time, although their bodies were 
far apart from each other. No being stands entirely iso- 
lated in nature, all are united by divine love, and the more 
they become conscious of the love that unites them the 
more do they realise that they are one. 

Separation and differentiation exists only in regard to 
the form, the fundamental power is one, and those who 
have united their minds with that principle know that 
they are one, and distance forms no impediment to the 
actions of their minds. Spirit is substance, inseparable, 
impenetrable, indivisible, and eternal; form is an aggre- 
gate, separate, penetrable, divisible, and subject to con- 
tinual change. The "communion of the saints" is a 
reality, for they are all one in the spirit. Light is only 
one. A number of lights in a room are as one light 
composed of that number. There is only one "Sound" 
but many expressions. If an orchestra is played in a 
room, each instrument produces sound, the sound of each 
fills the whole room and is heard according to its intens- 
ity. One instrument may sound louder than another; 
one light may shine brighter than the rest; but they do 
not annihilate or extinguish each other. Sound is one, 
and Light is one, and Spirit is one, only their manifesta- 
tions differ in quality and in strength. 

Love is one, but it manifests itself in various ways. 
Love unites all. Love is a state of the Will. Thought 
is directed by will, but the will to be powerful must be 
pure. If we desire two things at the same time, the will 
acts in two different directions : but division causes weak- 
ness, only in unity is strength. Will is one. The will is 



TRANSFORMATIONS. 211 

an universal principle and not confined within a form. 
If we concentrate our will and thought united upon a 
cloud in the sky, we can cause that cloud to dissolve, and 
the rapidity with which it dissolves will be proportionate 
to the strength of our concentration of mind.* 

As all forms are only external expressions of thought, 
if we could hold on to a thought and project it, we 
could create a form. But men do not control thought, 
they are the victims of it; they do not think what they 
choose, but what they are forced to think, by the thoughts 
flying into their minds. To obtain magic power the first 
requirement is to learn how to control thought; to com- 
mand our own moods of mind, and to allow only such 
ideas to enter the mind as we voluntarily choose to admit. 
Whoever has for the first time attempted to command 
a thought, and to hold on to it for five minutes, will have 
experienced the difficulty, and yet without this first re- 
quirement no progress in magic will ever be made. 

Before one can become a magician he must learn to 
control his own mind; for mind is the substance with 
which the magician acts, and the power to control it is 
the beginning of magic. No one can control the mind of 
another as long as he cannot control his own. The will 
acts outwardly from within the centre of the heart, and 
no one can make it act beyond the periphery of his body 
as long as he has not become strong enough to guide it 
within the body. The neophyte must learn first to con- 
trol his own emotions before he can control the emotions 
of others, he must know how to master his thoughts be- 
fore he can make them objective. But the mind cannot 
control its own self, it cannot rise above its own nature. 
To control the action of the mind a Master is required; 
this Master is the spirit of man. But spirit without sub- 
stance is without power — without an organism through 
which to act, it is merely a spirit. That which controls 

* There will be very few of our readers who have never noticed, 
that if they pass a certain person in the street, and then turn around 
to look after him or her, it very often happens that the latter turns 
at the same time to look after them. This happens so frequent, to be 
a mere matter of coincidence, and is caused by the fact that the im- 
pulse of will of one person can communicate itself to another person. 
But if one desires to make a person turn around by the effort of his 
will, and for the purpose of seeing whether he can do so, he will 
probably fail; because the desire to gratify his curiosity weakens the 
force of his will; he desires two things at once, and he fails. 



212 MAGIC. 

the mind is the spiritually awakened inner man— the 
divine nature in man, which is superior to his terrestrial 
mind. 

To change a form we change the state of mind, of 
which the form is an expression. Certain states of mind 
find their expressions in certain attitudes, and these atti- 
tudes induce corresponding mental states. A proud man 
will walk erect, a coward will creep, a continually prac- 
tised creeping walk will develop a cowardly nature, and 
a habitually erect posture will make a man proud or con- 
scious of his dignity. An actor who can identify himself 
fully with the personality whose part he plays, need not 
study attitudes to appear natural; an angry person who 
forces himself to smile lessens his anger; a person with 
a continual scowl on the face will find it difficult to be 
gay. It is on account of the desire to facilitate the enter- 
ing into certain mental states that certain attitudes have 
been prescribed in religious ceremonies and acts of devo- 
tion. 

If the Mind were its own Master, if the actions of the 
Universal Mind were not subject to the eternal divine 
law of cause and effect, but guided by the arbitrary 
whims and notions of some invisible power constituted 
of Mind without wisdom, the most extraordinary results 
were liable to follow and the age of actual miracles 
would begin. The earth would perhaps stand still for a 
day or a year and begin to revolve again the next ; some- 
times it might turn fast and at other times slow, and 
there is no end to the absurdities which might take place ; 
especially if this imaginary power could be induced to 
follow the advices of its worshippers. 

To the superficial observer the processes of nature 
seem to be the results of chance. The sun shines and 
the rain falls upon the land of the pious as well as upon 
that of the wicked; storms and fires rage, careless 
whether they destroy the life and property of the learned 
or that of the ignorant, because they are the necessary 
results of the law of cause and effect. The interest of 
individuals cannot control the welfare of the whole. 
While the welfare of the human body seems to be, to a 
certain extent, under the control of the will of the indi- 



TRANSFORMATIONS. 213 

vidual, the processes of nature, as a whole, appear to be 
unguided by the reason of the Universal Mind. 

The intellect, being unreasonable, is disposed to gauge 
the absolute reason of the Universal Mind by the rela- 
tive understanding of comparatively microscopic man. 
By the same right might the insect crawling in the dust 
doubt the intelligence of the wanderer, by whose foot it 
is maimed or killed without consideration and without 
remorse; such an insect, if capable of reasoning, would 
discover no intellect in that foot, and yet the man, whose 
foot is the destroyer, may be highly intellectual. 

The cause, why we cannot comprehend the eternal 
principle of reason in nature, is because it acts according 
to law, being one with the law; while our intellect, being 
filled with considerations of self-interests, is not free of 
desire, and therefore always inclined to act contrary to 
the law. 

Invisible causes produce visible effects, and the same 
cause, acting under similar conditions, will always pro- 
duce similar results. Whenever a certain amount of en- 
ergy has been accumulated, the time will arrive when it 
will be expended. The accumulated tension between the 
particles of explosives finds its equilibrium at the ap- 
proach of a spark; the electric tension established in 
the upper regions of the air finds its relief in lightning; 
accumulated emotions will be equilibrised by an outburst 
of passion ; accumulated energies in the soul of the earth 
produce earthquakes in the body of the earth, in the 
same manner as an outburst of grief causes the human 
form to tremble and to shake. Man's reason may pre- 
vent an outburst of his emotions; but where is the per- 
sonal god to control the emotions of the soul of the 
world? God does not prevent the growth of warts, or 
cancers, or tumours; God being the law cannot act in 
contradiction with himself. His blessings are accom- 
panied by curses. Man's foot crushes the insect, because 
man's perception and intelligence does not pervade his 
feet; God does not prevent the growth of a stone in the 
bladder, because the high cannot manifest itself in the 
low, wisdom cannot be active in an unconscious form; 
the means must be adapted to the end. When universal 



214 MAGIC. 

Man will have so far perfected himself as to be a self- 
conscious sphere of wisdom without any material parts, 
then will nature itself be a god. The music that can be 
made with a harp cannot be made with a stick. The 
absolute intelligence of the Universal Mind can only man- 
ifest itself relatively through instruments adapted to in- 
tellectual manifestation. Consciousness can manifest it- 
self as relative consciousness only in conscious forms. 

Wisdom is not a product of the organisation of man. 
It is eternal and universal. It finds its expression in the 
fundamental laws upon which the universe with all its 
forms is constructed. It is expressed in the shape of a 
leaf, in the body of an animal, in the organism of man. 
Its action can be found everywhere in nature, as long as 
the beings in nature live according to natural law. There 
are no diseases in nature, which have not been originally 
created by powers which acted contrary to the laws of 
nature and became therefore unnatural. Outward ap- 
pearances seem to contradict this assertion; because we 
find animals affected with diseases, and epidemic diseases 
are even of frequent occurrence in the vegetable king- 
dom. But a deeper investigation into the occult laws of 
nature will go to show that all the forms of nature, min- 
erals, vegetables, and animals, are merely states or ex- 
pressions of the Universal Mind of Universal Man. 
They are the products of the imagination of Nature, and 
as the imagination of Nature is acted on, influenced and 
modified by the imagination of man, a morbid imagina- 
tion of man is followed by a morbid state of Nature, and 
morbid results follow again on the physical plane. This 
law explains why periods of great moral depravity, sen- 
suality, superstition, and materialism are always fol- 
lowed by plagues, epidemics, famine, wars, &c, and it 
would be worth the while to collect statistics to show 
that such has invariably been the case. 

The elementary forces of nature are blind and obey 
the law that controls them. A motion originated by an 
impulse continues until the original energy is expended. 
Stones have no intelligence, because they have no organ- 
isation through which intelligence can become manifest, 
but if an intelligent power sets them into motion, they 



TRANSFORMATIONS. 21$ 

obey the law of its nature. As the organisms rise in the 
scale of evolution and development of form, their con- 
sciousness becomes more manifest. Consciousness be- 
comes manifest as instinct in the animal creation. It 
teaches the bird to fly, the fish to swim, the ants to build 
their houses, the swallows to make their nests. Acting 
through the nerve centres and the spinal cord it induces 
the action of the heart and lungs and other organic and 
involuntary actions of the body. 

As the spinal cord, in the course of evolution, devel- 
opes into a brain, the principle of consciousness obtains 
a more perfect instrument for its manifestation. Intel- 
lectual power takes the place of instinct, and the Univer- 
sal Mind begins to think through the individual brain of 
man, in the same sense as universal nature uses his body 
for manifesting her powers. 

With the highest development of the human brain, 
the most perfect instrument for the external manifesta- 
tion of mind is attained. But the essential man is a spirit, 
and with the development of the most perfect physical 
form the climax of his spiritual evolution is not reached. 
The essential man is a spirit and requires a spiritual 
organisation for the display of his powers. He has with- 
in himself the latent power to realise his own divine and 
universal existence, and to awaken this power hidden 
within his psychical constitution another light than the 
light of nature is required. This Light is the light of 
Divine Wisdom, one and infinite, and beyond the concep- 
tion of the brain. It is itself the one eternal Life into 
which man must enter, if he desires to realise his own 
immortal existence. To realise that divine universal 
existence, an organised soul as wide as the universe is 
required. This soul belongs to the divine man, the Di- 
vinity in Humanity, whose material body is the world 
and whose self-consciousness is Divine Wisdom, the self- 
recognition of Truth, the Redeemer of All. 




CHAPTER X * 

CREATION. 
"And God said: Let us make Man." — Bible. 

T 1 HE most important question that was ever asked, 
1 and is still asked with anxiety and often with fear, 
is the same that was propounded thousands of 
years ago by the Egyptian Sphinx, who killed him that 
attempted to solve the riddle and did not succeed : What 
is Man? Ages have passed away since the question was 
first asked, nations have slain each other in cruel relig- 
ious warfare, making vain efforts to impose upon each 
other such solution of the great problem as they believed 
they had found, but from the tombs of the past only re- 
echoes the same question — What is Man? And yet the 
answer seems simple. Reason, if divested of religious 
or scientific prejudices, tells us that man, like every other 
form in the universe, is a collective centre of energy, a 
solitary ray of the universally present Divine Light 
"which is the common source of everything that exists"; 
he is a true child of the great Spiritual Sun. As the rays 
of our sun only become visibly active in contact with 
dust, so the divine ray is absorbed and reflected by mat- 
ter. 

The sun-ray plays with the waves of the ocean; the 
heat created by the contact of water with light from above 
extracts from below the refined material, and the vapours 
rise to the sky, where, like the ghosts of the seas, they 

*The term Creation is frequently misunderstood. Neither the 
Bible nor any other reasonable book says that anything had ever 
been created out of nothing. Such a superstition belongs entirely 
to modern materialistic Science, which believes that life and con- 
sciousness could grow out of dead and unconscious things. The 
word "Creation" means the production of forms out of already 
existing formless materials; form in the absolute is not a thing, 
it is nothing but an illusion, and therefore if a form is produced 
nothing but an illusion has been created. 

216 



CREATION. 817 

wander in clouds of manifold shapes, travelling freely 
through the air, playing with the winds, until the time 
arrives when the energies which keep them suspended 
become exhausted and they once more descend to the 
earth. In a similar manner a divine ray of the spiritual 
sun mingles with matter while dwelling on Earth, ab- 
sorbing and assimilating whatever corresponds to its 
own nature. As the butterfly flits from flower to flower, 
tasting the sweets of each, so the human monad passes 
from life to life, from planet to planet, gathering ex- 
perience, knowledge, and strength, but when the day of 
life is over, night follows, and with it follows sleep, 
bringing dreams of vivid reality. The grossest elements 
remain to mingle again with earth, the more refined 
elements — the astral elements — which are still within the 
attraction of the planet, float about, driven hither and 
thither by their inherent tendencies, until the energy 
which holds them together is exhausted, and they dis- 
solve again in the plane to which they belong, but the 
highest spiritual energies of man, held together by love, 
freed from the attraction of Earth, ascend to their 
source like a white-robed spirit, bringing with them the 
products of experiences beyond the limits of matter. 
Man's love and aspiration do not belong to Earth. They 
create energies which are active beyond the confines of 
the grave and the funeral pyre; their activity lasts for 
ages, until it becomes exhausted, and the purified ray, 
still endowed with the tendencies impressed upon it by 
its last visit to the planet, again seeks association with 
matter, builds again its prison-house of animated clay, 
and appears an old actor in a new part upon the ever- 
changing stage of life. 

Some of the greatest philosophers have arrived at a 
recognition of this truth by speculation and logical rea- 
soning, while others, whose minds were illumined by 
wisdom, have perceived it as a self-evident fact by the 
power of intuition. 

To build the new house the impressions gathered by 
its previous visits furnish the material. The slothful 
rich man of the past may become the beggar of the 
future, and the industrious worker in the present life 



218 MAGIC 

develop tendencies which will lay the foundation of 
greatness in the next. Suffering in one life may pro- 
duce patience and fortitude that will be useful in 
another; hardships will produce endurance, self-denial 
will strengthen the will; tastes engendered in one life 
will be our guides in another; and latent energies will 
become active whenever circumstances require it during 
an existence on the material plane either in one life or 
another according to the eternal law of cause and effect. 

A child burns its ringers by touching the flame, and 
the adult does not remember all the circumstances under 
which the accident occurred; still the fact that fire will 
burn and must not be touched will remain impressed 
upon the mind. In the same manner the experiences 
gained in one life are not remembered in their details in 
the next, but the impressions which they produce will 
remain.* Again and again man passes through the 
wheel of transformation, changing his lower energies 
into higher ones, until matter attracts him no longer, and 
he becomes what he is destined to be, a god. 

Man, like the majority of organised beings, is an 
atom in the immensity of the universe; he cannot be 
divided and still remain a man; but unlike other and 
lower organised beings, whose realisation of existence is 
confined to the physical or astral plane, that which con- 
stitutes him a Man and distinguishes him from an animal 
is an integral and conscious part of the highest spiritual 
energy of the universe, which is everywhere present, and 
his spiritual consciousness is, therefore, not limited to 
a certain locality in the physical world. 

Who made Man? — Man makes himself during every 
day of his life. He is his own creator. The clay — the 
material body — that clings to the ray of the manifested 
Life, is taken from Earth, the energies, called the astral 
soul, are the products of the astral plane, the highest 

*There is a certain stage in the spiritual evolution of man, 
when he will remember the events of his previous lives; but to 
remember them in his present state of imperfection would be merely 
a hindrance in his progress. It has been said, that by not remem- 
bering the errors of our past lives, and their evil consequences, man 
is liable to commit his previous errors again; but we ought not to 
do good merely as a matter of speculation and to avoid evil conse- 
quences resulting therefrom, but from an inherent sense of duty, re- 
gardless of what the resulting consequences may be. 



CREATION. 219 

energies belong to the spirit. Animal man, like the lower 
orders of nature, is a product of the blind law of neces- 
sity, and may even be produced artificially.* The phy- 
sical attributes of the child and its mental qualifications 
are the result of inheritance of previously existing condi- 
tions. Like the tree that can send its roots into the 
neighbouring soil and gather the nutriment by which it 
is surrounded, but cannot roam about in search of food 
at distant places, so physical man has only a limited 
choice in the selection of such means of development 
as he may require; he grows, because lie cannot resist 
the law of necessity and the impulses given by nature. 
But as reason begins to enlighten him, the work of crea- 
tion begins. The intelligence within says to the will: 
"Let us make man." She urges the will, and the will 
sullenly leaves its favourite occupation of serving the 
passions and begins to mould man in accordance with the 
divine image held up before him by wisdom. 

Let us make Man, means : Let us make a divine man 
out of an animal man; let us surround the divine ray 
within us with the purest of essences ; let us throw off 
everything which is sensual and grossly material, and 
which hinders our progress ; let us transform the emo- 
tions into virtues in which the spiritual ray may clothe 
itself when it reascends to its throne. 

Let us make man ! It depends entirely on our efforts 
what kind of a man we shall make. To make an average 
man or even a superior one in the common acceptation 
of the term is not a very difficult matter. Follow the 
rules of health and the laws of diet, provide above all 
for yourself and never give anything away, unless by 
doing so you are sure to get more in return. You will 
then make a respectable animal, a "self-made" man, 
prominent, independent, and rich — one who lives and 
dies on the plane of selfishness, an object of envy for 
many; respected perhaps by many, but not by his con- 
science. 

There is another class of self-made men; those on the 
intellectual plane. They stand before the world as the 
world's benefactors, as philosophers, teachers, statesmen, 

♦See Paracelsus. "Homunculi." 



220 MAGIC. 

inventors, or artists. They have what is called genius, 
and instead of being mere imitators, they possess origin- 
ality. They benefit themselves by benefiting the world. 
Intellectual researches that benefit no one are unpro- 
ductive, they resemble physical exercise with dumb-bells, 
by which muscular strength may be gained, but no la- 
bour accomplished. An intellectual pursuit may be fol- 
lowed for merely selfish purposes; but unless there is a 
love for the object of that study, little progress will be 
made, and instead of a sage, a bookworm, will be the 
result. True genius is a magician who creates a world 
for himself and for others, and his power expands as he 
grows in perfection. 

The lower intellectual labour alone cannot be the true 
object of life; the truth cannot be grasped by the un- 
aided efforts of the brain, and he who attempts to arrive 
at the truth merely by the intellectual labour of the brain, 
without consulting the heart, will fail. The heart resem- 
bles the Sun as the seat of Wisdom, the brain corre- 
sponds to the Moon; it is the seat of the reasoning intel- 
lect, and receives its light and life from the Sun. If the 
Sun stands guard over the Moon, thoughts which are 
distasteful to the heart will not enter the brain. The 
heart and the head should work together in harmony, to 
kill the dragon of ignorance, dwelling upon the threshold 
of the temple, and to arrive at the truth. 

In the allegorical books of the Alchemists the Sun 
represents Intelligence; he is the "heart" of our Solar 
system; the Moon represents dreams and desires or the 
"brain"; Earth represents the physical Body. If the 
male Sun cohabits with the female Moon in the water of 
Truth, they will produce a son whose name is Wisdom. 
The intellect is the material man whose bride is spiritual 
understanding, the divine woman; no man or woman is 
perfect as long as the celestial marriage has not taken 
place through the power of Divine Love.* 

The materials of which Man is constructed are the 
principles that flow into him from the store-house of 
universal nature, the builder is the will, reason the super- 
intendent, and wisdom the supreme architect. The build- 

* Compare "The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ." 



CREATION. 221 

ing goes on without noise, and no sound of the hammer 
is heard, because the materials are already prepared by 
nature; they only require to be put into their proper 
places. The highest is the Spirit or "Consciousness," 
and Spirit alone is immortal. Such of the lower ele- 
ments as harmonise with it amalgamate with the spirit, 
and are rendered conscious and immortal. Spirit can 
only find its corresponding vibrations in the highest 
spiritual elements of the soul such as are furnished by 
the higher principles, and consist of the purest thoughts, 
aspirations, and memories produced by the fifth, in 
which resides the intellectual power of man. Pure in- 
telligence is Spirituality, but intellectual activity con- 
fined within the lower planes of thought can bring to 
light no spiritual treasures. Intellectual activity is not a 
power ; but the result of the power of spirit acting within 
the mind. A very intellectual and learned person may 
be very unhappy and unharmonious, if his tendencies 
are towards selfishness, and his mind incapable to be 
illuminated by the light of truth. Wisdom is the self- 
recognition of the truth; it resides in the spiritual soul 
of man, and sends its light down into his fifth principle, 
shining through the clouds of matter like the sunlight 
penetrating a fog. 

The fifth principle receives its stimulus from the 
fourth, the irrational nature of man. We cannot build 
a house without solid material, and we may just as well 
attempt to run a steam-engine without fuel or water as 
to make a genius out of a being without any emotions. 
The stronger the emotions are, the more enduring will 
be the spiritual temple, if they can be made to fit into 
the walls and pillars. A person originally without any 
emotions is without virtues, he is without energy, a 
shadow, neither cold nor warm, and necessarily useless. 
The passionate man is nearer to the spirit, if he can 
guide his passions in the right direction, than the man 
who has nothing to guide and nothing to conquer. 

To produce a perfect building, or a perfect man, the 
proportions must be harmonious. Wisdom guides the 
work and love furnishes the cement. An emotion is 
either a virtue or a vice according to the manner in 



222 MAGIC 

which it is applied. Misapplied virtues become vices, 
and well-directed vices are virtues. A man who acts 
according to the dictates of prudence alone is a coward; 
one who indiscriminately exercises his generosity is a 
spendthrift; courage without caution is rashness; ven- 
eration without knowledge produces superstition; charity 
without judgment makes a beggar, and even one-sided 
justice, untempered by mercy, produces a miserly, cruel, 
and despicable tyrant. 

The irrational soul, impelled only by its desires and 
unguided by wisdom, resembles a drunken man who has 
lost his physical balance; it totters from side to side, 
falls from one extreme into another, and cannot guide 
its steps. Only an equilibrium of forces can produce 
harmony, beauty, and perfection. The irrational soul, 
swayed by uncontrollable emotions, forms an unfit habi- 
tation for the divine ray, that loves peace and tranquil- 
lity. 

The control of the emotions is the difficult struggle 
that is allegorically represented by the twelve labours of 
Hercules, which the oracle of Zeus commanded him to 
perform. Every man who desires to progress is his 
own Hercules and works for the benefit of the king 
(his Atma), whose orders he receives through the divine 
oracle of his own conscience. He is constantly engaged 
in battle, because the lower principles fight for their 
lives and will not be conquered. They are the products 
of matter and they cling to their source. 

Whence do the emotions come? 

The cosmologies of the ancients express under various 
allegories the same fundamental truth; that "in the be- 
ginning" the Great First Cause evolved out of itself, 
by the power of its own will, certain powers, whose 
action and reaction brought the elementary forces that 
constituted the world into existence. These elementary 
forces are the Devas of the East, the Elohims of the 
Bible, the Afrites of the Persians, the Titans of the 
Romans, the Eggregores of the book of Enoch. They 
are the active agents of the cosmos, beneficial or detri- 
mental according to the conditions under which they 
act, intelligent or unintelligent according to the nature 



CREATION. B23 

of the instrument through which they work. They 
are not necessarily self-conscious rational entities, but 
may manifest themselves through conscious organisms 
endowed with reason; they are not persons, but become 
personified by finding expression in individual forms. 
Love and hate, envy and benevolence, lust and greed 
are not persons, but become personified in human or 
animal forms. An extremely malicious person is the 
embodiment of malice, and if he sees the demon in an 
objective form, he beholds the reflection of his own soul 
in the mirror of his mind. Spirit exists everywhere, 
but we cannot perceive a spirit unless it first enters the 
sphere of our soul. The spirit that enters our soul ob- 
tains its life from ourselves, and if we do not expel it 
from our soul it grows strong by vampirising our life. 
Like a parasite growing on a tree and feeding on 
its substance, it fastens its feelers around the tree 
of our life and grows strong while our own life grows 
weak. A thought, once taking root in the mind, will 
grow until it becomes expressed in an act, when, ob- 
taining a life of its own by that act, it leaves its place 
to a successor. Those elementary forces of nature are 
everywhere, and always ready to enter the soul if its 
doors are not defended. To call up a wicked spirit we 
need not go in search of him, we need only allow him 
to come. To call up a devil means to give way to an 
evil thought, to vanquish him means to resist successfully 
a temptation to evil. 

The elementary powers of nature are innumerable, and 
their classification gave rise to the pantheons of the 
Greeks and to the mythologies of the East. The 
greatest power is Zeus, the father of the gods, or the 
source from which all other powers take their origin. 
Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, springs from his head, 
her origin is the noblest of all, but Venus, the daughter 
of the Sun, arising from the ocean of the universal Soul, 
conquers all by her beauty. She holds together the 
worlds in space by the power of her attraction, binds 
souls to souls, chains the like to like, and binds the 
evil to evil. She is the mother of the minor gods that 
combat each other, because love of self, love of posses- 



224 MAGIC. 

sion, love of fame, love of power, &c., are all only chil- 
dren of the universal power of love. They fight among 
themselves like children, because action gives rise to re- 
action, love is opposed by hate, hope by fear, faith by 
doubt, &c. To control them the god of Power (Mars) 
must be united with the goddess of Love — in other words, 
the passions must be held in obedience by the Will. 

Each power exists and is held in its elementary 
matrix or vehicle, the A'kasa, the Universal Proteus, 
the generator of form, which finds its outward expression 
in Matter, and these powers constitute the eternal circle, 
or the snake, "whose head shall be crushed by the heel 
of a woman," meaning Wisdom, the eternal virgin, 
whose "daughters" are faith, hope, and charity. 

The snake cannot enter the soul, if the soul is defended 
by wisdom. If an evil thought enters the soul and we 
do not reject it, we harbour a devil in our heart, whose 
claims we take into consideration ; we give him a promise 
and induce him to remain, and, like an unwelcome credit- 
or, he will continually urge his claims until they are ful- 
filled. 

The lower triads of principles in the constitution of 
man receive their nutriment from the inferior kingdoms 
of nature. If the body is overfed or stimulated by 
drink, the emotional element will become excessively 
active and the intellect will become weak. Too stimu- 
lating food or drink is injurious for higher development, 
because life will in such cases withdraw its activity from 
the higher principles and be made to work in the lower 
principles of man. Large quantities of otherwise healthy 
food will be injurious for the same reason. The principle 
of life which transforms the lower energies into higher 
ones is the same principle which causes the digestion of 
food. If it is squandered in the lower organs, the higher 
organs will starve. Some men are habituated to meat- 
eating, and they require it ; others are used to alcohol, and 
if they would suddenly discontinue its use they will suffer; 
but meat and alcohol are, under normal conditions, un- 
necessary for the human system, and often they act 
positively injurious. 

The principal argument of the lovers of animal food 



CREATION. 225 

is that it "gives bodily strength, and is necessary for 
those who have to perform manual labour." This argu- 
ment is based upon an erroneous opinion, because animal 
food does not give as much strength as a vegetable diet ;* 
it only stimulates the organism, and induces it to use up 
the strength which it already possesses in a short period 
of time instead of saving it up for the future. The conse- 
quences of an exclusive animal diet, gluttony, extreme 
sensuality, combativeness, cruelty, and stupidity, indo- 
lence, physical and psychical apathy, are the necessary 
consequences of over-stimulation. 

Darwin says that "the hardest-working people he ever 
met are the persons that work in the mines of Chili, and 
that they are living on an exclusively vegetable diet." 
The country people in Ireland live almost without meat- 
eating, and yet they are strong and enduring. The com- 
mon Russian eats very little meat and enjoys good health. 
The strongest people that can perhaps be found any- 
where are the country people in the South of Bavaria, and 
they eat meat only on exceptional occasions and holy- 
days. Horses, bulls, elephants, are the strongest animals, 
and live on vegetable food, while the prominent traits 
of character of the flesh-eating animals are cowardice, 
irritability, and cunning. A bear kept at the Anatomical 
•Museum at Giessen showed a quiet, gentle, nature as 
long as he was fed on bread, but a few days' feeding on 
meat made him, not stronger, but vicious and dangerous. 

Let those who desire to know the truth in regard to 
meat-eating seek the answers to their questions, not with 
the intellect of the head, but through the voice of wis- 
dom speaking in the interior of their heart, and they will 
not be mistaken.! 

Another question arises in regard to the eating of 
flesh; it is the question whether or not man has a right 
to kill animals for his food. To the professed Christians 
who claim to believe in the Bible there seems to be no 
cause for any doubt, because the command is plain: 
"Thou shalt not kill." And yet this command is dis- 

* According to the calculations made by Prov. J. v. Liebig, the 
same amount of albuminous substances for which, if in the form 
of animal food, is paid 100d., can be bought in the shape of peas 
for 9d., and in that of wheat for 4d. 

t See Dr. A. Kingsford: "The Perfect Way in Diet" 



226 MAGIC. 

regarded daily by millions of professed "Christians/' 
who base their illusory right to kill animals upon a mis- 
understood verse of their Bible. It is said that God per- 
mitted man to "have dominion over the fish of the sea, 
and over the fowls of the air, and over the cattle, and 
over every living thing that moveth upon the earth,f 
if he kills his inferiors, his dominion over them is at an 
end. Man's prerogative is to appease suffering, not to 
cause it; not to interrupt the work of evolution, but to 
assist it. Christianity and murder are incompatible 
terms. 

Meat is stimulating, and stimulating food creates a 
desire for stimulating drink. The best cure for the 
desire for alcoholic drink is to avoid the eating of meat. 
It is doubtful whether there is any passion in the world 
more devilish and more detrimental to the true interests 
of humanity and of individual happiness than the love 
of Alcohol. As meat-eating endows man with illu- 
sory strength, that soon fades away, leaving its possessor 
weaker than he was before; likewise stimulating drinks 
lull him into an illusory happiness, which soon disap- 
pears, and is followed by lasting and real misery, causing 
suffering to himself and to others. It causes a long list 
of diseases of the internal organs, and leads to premature 
death ; it is the cause of by far the great majority of all 
crimes committed in civilised countries. To those who 
look upon man as a rational being, it seems incompre- 
hensible why civilised nations will suffer an evil in their 
midst that fills their jails, hospitals, lunatic asylums, and 
graveyards ; and why men will "put an enemy in their 
mouths" that destroys their health, their reason, and 
their life; but those who look deeper see that in our 
present age the dawn of reason has only begun, and that 
the v spiritual faculties of the majority of men still sleep 
in the icy embrace of ignorance. Reforms are necessary, 
but they cannot be inaugurated by merely external 
means ; the only redeemer is knowledge.* 

The body politic resembles the individual body. It 
is of no use to destroy the means to gratify a desire as 

* See Dr. A. Kingsford: "The Alcoholic Controversy." 



CREATION. 227 

long as the desire itself is suffered to exist. The evils 
that affect mankind are the outcome of their desires for 
such evils. Means to gratify evil desires will exist as 
long as they are patronised, and if they are abolished 
other means will be found. Weeds are not destroyed by 
cutting their leaves, if the roots are allowed to remain. 
These roots grow in the dark soil of ignorance, they 
can only be destroyed by the light of the truth. 

To eat and drink and sleep for the purpose of living, 
and not to live for the purpose of eating, drinking, and 
sleeping, is a maxim which is often heard, but which is 
not frequently carried out. A great deal of nutriment 
daily taken by men serves no other purpose than to 
comply with habit, and to gratify an artificially created 
desire. The more a man is gross and material, the 
greater is the quantity of food he desires, and the more 
food he takes the more gross and material will he be- 
come. Noble and refined natures require little nutri- 
ment, ethereal beings and "spiritual" entities require no 
material food. 

The means should always be adapted to the end in 
view. If the end is low and vulgar, low and vulgar 
means will be needed ; if it is noble and high, equally 
high and noble means are required. A prize-fighter, 
whose main object is to develop muscle, will require a 
different training from that of one who desires to devel- 
op the faculty to perceive spiritual truths. Conditions 
that may be suitable for the development of one person 
may be impracticable for another. One man will develop 
faster through poverty, another through wealth; one 
man may need as his initial psychic stimulus the gentle 
and exalting influences of married life, while another 
one's aspirations rise higher, if independent of earthly 
ties. Each man who exercises his will for the purpose 
of his higher development is, to the extent he exercises 
it, a practical occultist. Every one grows necessarily in 
one direction or in another; none remain stationary. 
Those who desire to outstrip others in growth must act. 

One of the Tibetan Adepts says in a letter — 

"Man is made up of ideas, and ideas guide his life. 
The world of subjectivity is the only reality to him even 



228 MAGIC. 

on this physical plane. To the occultist it grows more 
real as it goes further and further from illusory earthly 
objectivity, and its ultimate reality is Parabrahm. Hence 
an aspirant for occult knowledge should begin to con- 
centrate all his desires on the highest ideal, that of ab- 
solute self-sacrifice, philanthropy, divine kindness, as of 
all the highest virtues obtainable on this Earth, and 
work up to it incessantly. The more strenuous his 
efforts to rise up to that ideal, the oftener is his will- 
power exercised, and the stronger it becomes. When it 
is thus strengthened, it sets up a tendency, in the gross 
shell of Stula-sharira, to do such acts as are compatible 
with the highest ideal he has to work up to, and his acts 
intensify his will-power doubly, owing to the operation 
of the well-known law of action and reaction. Hence in 
Occultism great stress is laid on practical results. 

Now the question is: What are these practical re- 
sults, and how are they to be produced? It is a well- 
known fact, derived from observation and experience, 
that progress is the law of nature. The acceptance of 
this truth suggests the idea, that humanity is in its lower 
stages of development, and is progressing towards the 
state of perfection. It will approach the final goal when 
it developes new sensibilities and a clear relation with 
nature. From this it is obvious that a final state of per- 
fection will be arrived at when the energy that animates 
man co-operates with the One Life operating in the 
Cosmos in achieving this mighty object; and knowledge 
is the most powerful means to that end. 

Thus it will be clear that the ultimate object of nature 
is to make man perfect through the union of the human 
spirit with the One Life. Having this final goal before 
our mind, an intellectual brotherhood should be formed 
by uniting all together, and this is the only stepping- 
stone towards the final goal. To produce this practical 
result, union, we must hold up the highest ideal, which 
forms the real man, and make others see that truth and 
act up to it. To lead our neighbors and fellow-creatures 
to this right path, the best means should be pursued with 
self-sacrificing habits. When our energy as a collective 
whole is thus expended, in working up to the highest 



CREATION. 229 

ideal, it becomes potent, and the grandest results are 
produced on the spiritual plane. As this is the most 
important work in which every occultist should be en- 
gaged, an aspirant for higher knowledge should spare 
no efforts to bring about this end. With the progressive 
tide of evolution of the body as a whole, the mental and 
the spiritual faculties of humanity expand. To help 
this tide on, a knowledge of philosophical truths should 
be spread. This is what is expected from an aspirant 
for occult knowledge, and what he should do." 

The will is developed through action and strengthened 
by faith. The movements of the body, such as walking, 
are only successfully performed by a person because he 
has a full and unwavering faith in his power to perform 
them. Fear and Doubt paralyse the will and produce 
Impotency; but hope and faith produce marvellous re- 
sults. The lawyer or physician who has no faith in his 
own ability will make blunders, and if his clients or 
patients share his doubts, his usefulness will be seriously 
Impaired; whereas even the ignorant fanatic or quack 
may succeed, if he has faith in himself. 

Lord Lytton says : "The victims of the ghostly one 
are those that would aspire and can only fear." Fear 
and Doubt are the hell-born daughters of ignorance that 
drag man down to perdition; while Faith is the white- 
robed angel that lends him her wings and endows him 
with power. "Samsayatma Vinasyatr" (the doubter 
perishes), said Krishna to Arjuna, his favourite disci- 
ple. 

Faith is soul-knowledge; therefore, even without in- 
tellectual knowledge, it is more useful than intellectual 
knowledge without faith. Strong faith even if resting 
upon an erroneous conception, acts powerfully in pro- 
ducing results ; faith produces an exalted state of the 
imagination, which strengthens the will, banishes pain, 
•cures disease, leads to heroism, and transforms hell 
into heaven. 

The only way to develop will-power is to act according 
to law. Each act creates a new impulse, which, added 
to the already existing energy, increases its strength. 
Good acts increase the power for good; evil acts, the 



230' MAGIC. 

power lor evil. K person who acts only from impulse 
manifests no will of his own. If he obeys his lower 
impulses he passively develops into a criminal or a 
maniac ; he who acts by the impulse of divine wisdom is a 
god. The most horrible crimes are often committed 
without any proportionate provocation, because the per- 
petrators had not the power to resist the impulses that 
prompted them to such acts. Such persons are not nec- 
essarily wicked; they are weak and irresponsible 
beings ; they are the servants of the impulses that con- 
trol them, and they can be made the helpless instruments 
and victims of those who know how to call forth their 
emotions: they are like the soldiers of two opposing 
armies, who are not necessarily personal enemies; but 
are made to hate and kill each other by appeals to their 
passions. The oftener such persons give way to im- 
pulses, the more is their power of resistance diminished, 
and their own impotency is their ruin. It is of little use 
to be merely passively good, if abstinence from wrong- 
doing may be so called. A person who does neither good 
nor evil accomplishes nothing. A stone, an animal, an 
imbecile, may be considered good, because they do no 
active evil; a person may live a hundred years, and at 
the end of his life he may not have been more useful 
than a stone.* 

There is nothing in nature which has not a threefold 
aspect and a threefold activity. The Will-power forms 
no exception to this rule. In its lowest aspect the Will 
is that power which induces the voluntary and involun- 
tary functions of the physical organism; its centre of 
activity is the spinal cord. In its higher aspect it is 
the power which induces psychic activity; it is diffused 
through the blood which comes from the heart and 
returns to it, and its actions are governed, or can be 
governed, by intellect acting in the brain by means of 
the impulses, influences, and auras radiating from there. 
In its highest aspects the Will is a living and self-con- 
scious power having its centre in Wisdom. 

The will, to become powerful, must be free of desire. 

* "He who is neither hot nor cold, hut lukewarm, will be spued 
out by nature." — Bible. 



CREATION. 231 

If we desire an object, we do not attract that object, 
but the object attracts us. Eliphas Levi says : "The 
Will accomplishes everything which it does not desire;" 
and the truth of this paradox is seen in every-day life. 
Those who crave for fame or riches are never con- 
tented; the rich miser is poorer than the beggar in the 
street; happiness is a shadow that flies before him who 
seeks it in material pleasures. The surest way to be- 
come rich is by being contented with what we have ; the 
safest way to obtain power is to sacrifice ourselves for 
others; and if we desire love, we must distribute the 
love we possess to others, and then the love of others 
will descend upon us like the rain descends upon the 
earth. 

The development of the Will is a process of growth, 
and the only true way to develop the Will is by being 
obedient to the universal Law. If we wish to use 
nature, we must act according to natural law; if we 
wish to use spiritual powers, we must act in obedience 
to the spiritual law. Then will we become masters of 
Nature and God, and our Will will become a serviceable 
instrument for the fulfilment of law ; but as long as the 
Will is governed by personal desire, it is not we who 
control our will, but it is our desire. As long as we do 
the will of the lower animal I, we cannot be gods; only 
when we perform the will of the Divinity, we will be- 
come free of the bondage of the animal elements, and 
our true Self will be the Master. 

Man in his youth longs for the material pleasures of 
earth, for the gratification of his physical body. As he 
advances, he throws away the playthings of his child- 
hood and reaches out for something higher. He enters 
into intellectual pursuits, and after years of labour he 
may find that he has been wasting his time by running 
after a shadow. Perhaps love steps in and he thinks 
himself the most fortunate of mortals, only to find out, 
sooner or later, that ideals can only be found in the ideal 
world. He becomes convinced of the emptiness of the 
shadows he has been pursuing, and, like the winged 
butterfly emerging from the chrysalis, he stretches out 
his feelers into the realm of infinite spirit, and is aston- 



232 MAGIC. 

ished to find a radiant sun where he only expected to 
find darkness and death. Some arrive at this light soon- 
er; others arrive later, and many are lured away by 
some illusive light and perish, and like insects that mis- 
take the flame of a candle for the light of the sun, scorch 
their wings in its fire. 

Life is a continual battle between error and truth; 
between man's spiritual aspirations and the demands of 
his animal instincts. There are two gigantic obstacles 
in the way of progress : his misconception of the nature 
of God and of Man. As long as man believes in an 
extracosmic personal God distributing favours to some 
and punishing others at pleasure, a God that can be 
reasoned with, persuaded, and pacified by ignorant man, 
he will keep himself within the narrow confines of his 
ignorance, and his mind cannot expand. To think of 
some place of personal enjoyment or heaven, does not 
assist man's progression. If such a person desists from 
doing a wicked act, or denies himself a material pleasure, 
he does not do so from any innate love of good; but 
either because he expects a reward from God for his 
"sacrifice," or because his fear of God makes him a 
coward. We must do good, not on account of any per- 
sonal consideration, but because to do good is our duty. 
To be good is to be wise ; the fool expects rewards ; the 
wise expects nothing. The wise knows that by benefit- 
ing the world he benefits himself, and that by injuring 
others he becomes his own executioner. 

What are the powers of Man, by which he may benefit 
the world? Man has no powers belonging to himself. 
Even the substance of which his organisation is made 
up, does not belong but is only lent to him by Nature, 
and he must return it. He cannot make any use of it, 
except through that universal power, which is active 
within his organisation, which is called the Will, and 
which itself is a function of an universal principle, the 
Spirit. 

Man as a personal and limited being is merely a mani- 
festation of this universal principle in an individual form, 
and all the spiritual powers he seems to possess belong 
to the Spirit. Like all other forms in nature he receives 



CREATION. 233 

life, light, and energy from the universal fountain of 
Life, and enjoys their possession for a short span of 
time ; he has no powers whatever which he may properly 
call his own. 

Thus the sunshine and rain, the air and earth, does 
not belong to a plant. They are universal elements be- 
longing to nature. They come and help to build up the 
plant, they assist in the growth of the rosebush as well 
as the thistle; their business is to develop the seed, and 
when their work is done, the organism in which they 
were active returns again to its mother, the Earth. 
There is then nothing which properly belongs to the 
plant; but the seed continues to exist without the par- 
ental organism after having attained maturity, and in it 
is contained the character of the species to which it 
belongs. 

Life, sensation, and consciousness are not the property 
of personal man; neither does he produce them. They 
are functions of the Spirit and belong originally to God. 
The One Life furnishes the principles which go to build 
up the organism called Man, the forms of the good as 
well as those of the wicked. They help to develop the 
germ of Intelligence in man, and when their work is 
done they return again to the universal fountain. The 
germ of Divinity is all there is of the real man, and all 
that is able to continue to exist as an individual, and it 
is not a man, but a Spirit, one and identical in its 
essence with the Universal God, and one of his children. 
How many persons exist , in , whom this divine germ 
reaches maturity during their^earthly,' life ? How many 
die before it begins to sprout j^Ho\v many do not even 
know that such a germ exists^ 

To this Universal Principle' belong the functions which 
we call Will and Life and Light;' its foundation is Love. 
To it belong all the fundamental powers which pro- 
duce the universe and man, and only when man has 
become one and identical with God, or to speak more 
correctly, when he has come to realise his oneness with 
God, can he claim to have powers of his own. 

But the Will of this Universal Power is identical with 
universal Law, and man who acts against the Law acts 



234 MAGIC. 

against the Will of God, and as God is man's only real 
eternal Self, he who acts against that Law destroys 
himself. 

The first and most important object of man's exist- 
ence is, therefore, that he should learn the law of God 
and of Nature, so that he may obey it and thereby become 
one with the law and live in God. A man who knows 
the Law knows himself, and a man who knows his 
divine Self knows God. 

The only power which man may rightfully claim his 
own is his Self-knowledge ; it belongs to him because he 
has acquired it by the employment of the powers lent 
to him by God. Not the "knowledge" of the illusions 
of life, for such knowledge is illusive, and will end with 
those illusions; not mere intellectual learning, for that 
treasure will be exhausted in time ; but the spiritual self- 
knowledge of the heart, which means the power to grasp 
the truth which exists in ourselves. 

What has been said about the Will is equally appli- 
cable to the Imagination. If man lets his own thoughts 
rest, and rises up to the sphere of the highest ideal, his 
mind becomes a mirror wherein the thoughts of God will 
be reflected, and in which he may see the past, the pres- 
ent, and future; but if he begins to speculate within the 
realm of illusions, he will see the truth distorted and be- 
hold his own hallucinations. 

The knowledge of God and the knowledge of man are 
ultimately identical, and he who knows himself knows 
God. If we understand the nature of the divine attri- 
butes within us, we will know the Law. It will then not 
be difficult to unite our Will with the supreme Will or 
the cosmos; and we shall be no longer subject to the 
influences of the astral plane, but be their masters. Then 
will the Titans be conquered by the gods; the serpent 
in us will have its head crushed by Divine Wisdom; the 
devils within our own hells will be conquered, and in- 
stead of being ruled by illusions, we shall be ruled by 
Wisdom. 

It is sometimes said that it does not make any differ- 
ence what a man believes so long as he acts rightly; but 
a person cannot be certain to act rightly, unless he knows 



CREATION. 235 

what is right. The belief of the majority is not always 
the correct belief, and the voice of reason is often 
drowned in the clamour of a superstition based upon 
erroneous theological doctrine. An erroneous belief is 
detrimental to progress in proportion as it is universal; 
such belief rests on illusion, knowledge is based on truth, 
The greatest of all religious teachers therefore recom- 
mended Right Belief as being the first step on the Noble 
Eightfold Path* 

Perhaps it will be useful to keep in mind the following 
rules — 

1. Do not believe that there is anything higher in the 
universe than your own divine self, and know that you 
are exactly what you permit yourself to become. The 
true religion is the recognition of divine truth; idols are 
playthings for children. 

2. Learn that man is essentially a component and in- 
tegral part of universal humanity, and that what is done 
by one individual acts and reacts on all. 

3. Realise that man's nature is an embodiment of 
ideas, and his physical body an instrument which en- 
ables him to come into contact with matter; and that 
this instrument should not be used for unworthy pur- 
poses. It should neither be worshipped nor neglected. 

4. Let nothing that affects your physical body, its 
comfort; or the circumstances in which you are placed, 
disturb the equilibrium of your mind. Crave for noth- 
ing on the material plane, live about it without losing 
control over it. Matter forms the steps upon which we 
may ascend to the kingdom of heaven. 

5. Never expect anything from anybody, but be always 
ready to assist others to the extent of your ability, and 
according to the requirements of justice. Never fear 

* The eight stages on the noble eightfold Path to find the truth 
are, according to the doctrine of Gautama Buddha, the following — 

1. Right Belief. 

2. Right Thought. 

3. Right Speech. 

4. Right Doctrine. 

5. Right Means of Livelihood. 

6. Right Endeavour. 

7. Right Memory. 

8. Right Meditation. 

The man who keeps these augas in mind and follows them will 
be free from sorrow, and may become safe from future rebirths 
with their consequent miseries. 



236 MAGIC. 

anything but to offend the moral law and you will not 
suffer. Never hope for any reward and you will not 
be disappointed. Never ask for love, sympathy, or grati- 
tude from anybody, but be always ready to bestow them 
on others. Such things come only when they are not 
desired. 

6. Learn to distinguish and to discriminate between 
the true and the false, and act up to your highest ideal. 
Grieve not if you fall, but rise and proceed on your 
way. 

7. Learn to appreciate everything (yourself included) 
at its true value in all the various planes. A person 
who attempts to look down upon one who is his superior 
is a fool, and a person who looks up to one who is in- 
ferior is mentally blind. It is not sufficient to believe 
in the value of a thing, its value must be realised, other- 
wise it resembles a treasure hidden in the vaults of a 
miser. 

Louis Claude de Saint Martin (the Unknown Philos- 
opher) says : 

"This is what should pass in a man who is restored 
to his divine proportions through the process of regener- 
ation — 

"Not a desire, but in obedience to the law. 

"Not an idea, which is not a sacred communication 
with God. 

"Not a word, which is not a sovereign decree. 

"Not an act, which is not a development and extension 
of the vivifying rule of the Word. 

"Instead of this, our desires are false, because they 
come from ourselves. 

"Our thoughts are vague and corrupt, because they 
form adulterous alliances. 

"Our words are without efficacy, because we allow 
them to be blunted every day by the heterogeneous sub- 
stances to which we continually apply them. 

"Our acts are insignificant and barren, because they 
can but be the results of our words." 

The best of all instructions for becoming spiritual and 
ultimately divine are to be found in the Bhagavad Gita. 
They also teach that man needs not to exert his self- 



CREATION. 837 

will for the purpose of saving himself; for Krischna 
says: "Devote thy heart to Me, worship Me, sacrifice 
yourself to Me, bow down before Me, so shalt thou 
surely come to Me;"* and the prayer of the Christians 
says : "Let thy will be done on earth (in our mortal 
nature) as it is done in heaven (in our spiritual nature)." 
Such and similar instructions are nothing new; they 
have been pronounced in various forms by the philos- 
ophers of all ages, and have been collected in books, and 
men have read them without getting any better for it, 
because they could not realize the necessity for follow- 
ing such advice. These doctrines have been taught by 
the ancient Rishis and Munis, by Buddha and Christ, 
Confucius, Zoroaster and Mahomed, Plato, Luther and 
Shakespeare, and every reformer. They have been 
preached in sermons, and written in poems and prose, 
in works of philosophy, literature, fiction and art. They 
have been heard by all, understood by some, and prac- 
ticed by a few. To learn them is easy, to realise them 
is difficult, to adopt them in practical life is divine. 
The highest spiritual truths cannot be intellectually 
grasped, the reasoning powers of half-animal man can- 
not conceive of their importance; terrestrial man can 
only look up to those ideals which are perceptible to 
his spiritual vision in moments of aspiration, and only 
gradually can he grow up into that plane when, becoming 
less animal and more spiritual, he will be able to realise 
the fact that this growth is not necessary to please a god 
whose favour must be obtained, or to insure a happy 
animal life; but that he himself becomes a god by that 
growth, and learns to experience his own immortal ex- 
istence. The highest energies are latent in the lower 
ones; they are the attributes of the spiritual soul, which 
in the majority of men is still in a state of infancy, but 
which in future generations will be more universally de- 
veloped, when humanity as a whole, having progressed 
higher, will look back upon our present era as the age 
of ignorance and misery, while they themselves will 
enjoy the fruits of the higher evolution of Man. 

• Bhagavad Gita, xviii. 65. 




CHAPTER XI. 



LIGHT. 



"Let there be Light."— Bible. 

"Ci ORM, personality, and sensuality are the death of 
" spirit : the dissolution of form, loss of personality 
and unconsciousness of sensuous perceptions, ren- 
der spirit free and restore it to life. The elementary 
forces of nature, bound to forms, become the prisoners 
of the forms. Being entombed in matter they lose their 
liberty of action and move only in obedience to external 
impulses; the more they cling to form, the more dense, 
compact, heavy and dull will they become, and the less 
will they be self-acting and free. Sunlight and heat are 
comparatively free; their elements travel from planet to 
planet, until they are absorbed by earthly forms. Crys- 
tallised into matter they sleep in trees and forests and 
fields of coal, until they are liberated by the slow de- 
composition of form, or forcibly restored to freedom 
by the god of fire. The waves of ocean and lake play 
joyfully with the shore. Full of mirth they throw their 
spray upon the lazy rocks. The laughing waters of the 
wandering brook glide restlessly through forest and field, 
dancing and whirling and playing with the flowers that 
grow by the side of their road. They rush without fear 
over precipices, falling in cascades over the mountain 
sides, uniting, dividing, and uniting again, mingling 
with rivers and resting at last for a while in the sea. 
But when winter arrives and King Frost puts his icy 
hand upon their faces, they crystallise into individual 
forms, they are then robbed of their freedom, and like 
the damsels and knights of the enchanted castle, they 
are doomed to sleep until the warm breath of youthful 

238 



LIGHT. 239 

Spring breaks the spell of the sorcerer, and kisses them 
back into life. 

The fundamental laws of Nature are the same in all 
her departments, and man forms no exception to the 
general rule. He is a centre around which some of the 
intelligent as well as some of the unintelligent forces 
have crystallised into a form. Bound by the laws of 
the Karma which that centre created, they are doomed 
to dwell in a form, and to partake of the accidents to 
which forms are exposed; imprisoned in a personality, 
they partake of the sufferings which the tendencies of 
that personality have called into existence. They may 
be exposed to desires whose thirst increases in propor- 
tion as they are furnished with drink, to passions whose 
fire burns hotter in proportion as their demand for fuel 
is granted, they are tempted to run after shadows that 
ever fly, to grasp at hopes that ever beckon and vanish 
as soon as they are approached, to sorrows that enter 
the house although the doors may be closed against 
them, to fears whose forms have no substance, to illu- 
sions that disappear only with the life of the form. 
Like Prometheus bound to a rock, the impersonal spirit 
is chained to a personality, until the consciousness of his 
herculean power awakes in him, and bursting his chains 
he becomes again free. 

Not all the elements that go to make up a complete 
man are enclosed in his material form. The far greater 
part of them is beyond the limits of his physical body; 
the latter is merely a centre in which those invisible 
elements meet. The body of man does not enclose the 
sphere of his spirit; his soul is far greater than the 
circumference of his form.* The elements that exist 
beyond the limits of his visible organism stand in in- 
timate relation with those that are within, although the 
elements within the form may not seem to be conscious 
of the existence of those beyond. Still they act and re- 
act upon each other. 

The mind of man is far more important than his 
physical form. Thought can create a form, but no form 

* For this reason persons manifesting great genius have been called 
"great souls" or "Mahatmas," from "maha" great and "atma" 
the soul. 



240 MAGIC. 

can produce a thought ; and yet the substance of thought 
is invisible as long as it has not clothed itself in a form. 
Air exists within and beyond the physical body; it is 
invisible and yet it is an important element of the body, 
a man who could not breathe would be very incomplete. 
The ocean of mind in which man 'exists is as necessary 
to his soul-life as the air is to his body, he cannot 
breathe if deprived of air; he cannot think if deprived 
of mind. The outer acts upon the inner, the inner upon 
the outer, the above upon the below, the great upon the 
little, and the little upon the great. A man who could 
live independent of his surroundings would be self- 
existent, he would be a god. 

The spirit is not confined by the form, it only over- 
shadows the form; the form does not contain the spirit, 
it is only its outward expression; it is the instrument 
upon which the spirit plays, and which reacts upon its 
touch, while the spirit responds to its vibrations. An 
ancient proverb says: "Everything that exists upon the 
Earth has its ethereal counterpart above the Earth, and 
there is nothing, however insignificant it may appear in 
the world, which is not depending on something higher; 
so that, if the lower part acts, its preceding higher part 
reacts upon it."* 

The greatest philosophers in ancient times taught 
that the yo^s alone recognised noumena, always re- 
mained outside the physical body of man; that it over- 
shadowed his head, and that only the ignorant believed 
it existed within themselves. Modern philosophers have 
arrived at similar conclusions. Fichte writes: "The 
real spirit which comes to itself in human consciousness 
is to be regarded as an impersonal pneuma — universal 
reason — and the good of man's whole development there- 
fore can be no other than to substitute the universal 
for the individual consciousness." 

The Bhagavad Gita says: "The Supreme Brahma is 
within and without all beings; motionless and yet mov- 
ing. Not distributed in beings, yet constantly distributed 
in them. He is the light of all luminous things and in 

* Sohar Wajecae. 



LIGHT. 241 

everything its perfection,"* and the same truth, speaking 
through the mouth of Jesus of Nazareth, says : "I am 
the Light of the world. He that followeth me shall not 
walk in darkness but shall have the light of life."f 

The greatest of all teachers, Gautama Buddha, says: 
"The permanent never' mingles with the impermanent, 
although the two are one. Only when all outward ap- 
pearances are gone, is that one principle of life left, which 
exists independently of all external phenomena. It is 
the fire that burns within the external light when the 
fuel is expended and the flame is extinguished, for that 
fire is neither in the flame nor in the fuel, nor yet inside 
ei- ler of the two, but above, beneath, and everywhere." 

This principle, in which rests the self-recognition of 
eternal truth is the real Ego of every human being, and 
he who succeeds in attaining self-knowledge of it has 
found the Christ. It is the true and living Christ of 
the real Christians, not the dead "Jesus" but the living 
Saviour, the Divinity, who, being born in our Humanity, 
remains with his followers unto the end of the world. 
Everyone who unites his own soul with that Christ — 
no matter what his creed or confession may be — will 
become as true and veritable a Christ as ever lived 
upon the Earth. It is the Aoyos of the ancients, the 
Adam Kadmon of the Hebrews, the Osiris of the 
Egyptians, the Iswar of the Hindus, the way, the light, 
and the truth, the divine Self of every man and the Re- 
deemer for all.J 

Hermes Trismegistus says of that being called "Man" : 
"Its father is the Sun (Divine Wisdom), his mother the 
stars (the Astral light) and his body the generations of 
men." 

The whole of a man is not enclosed within the small 
circle that circumscribes his terrestrial life. He who 
has found the "Father" within himself knows the true 
insignificance of his own personal self. The life of the 
personality is made up of a comparatively small number 
of years passed among the illusions of the terrestrial 

* Bhagavad Gita, xiii. t St. John, viii. 12. 

t "Though Christ a thousand times in 'Bethlehem' is born; 
If he's not born in thee, thy soul is all forlorn." 

— Angelus Silesius (born 1624). 



242 MAGIC. 

plane; the experience of the inner man is made up of 
the essence of a great many of such lives; he has 
retained of them only that which is useful and grand, 
while the worthless materials have been rejected, but 
the life of the Divine man is eternal, universal, self 
existent, and infinite. He who has once realized the 
presence of his God laughs at the idea of having ever 
imagined himself to be something more than a bundle 
of semi-conscious elements from which the inner Self 
draws nutriment, if it finds anything therein compatible 
with its own nature. What is all the power and glory 
of earthly kings compared with the divine Man, the 
King in the realm of the soul ? what is all the sciei ce 
of this earth but nonsense, if compared with the self- 
knowledge of the regenerated? Well may he who has 
welcomed the Lord in his soul be willing to renounce 
money, power and fame, terrestrial loves and all the il- 
lusions of life, if it can be called "renunciation" to re- 
fuse to touch things upon which one looks with indiffer- 
ence. How can he, who has never seen the image of the 
true Saviour, in his heart love him, and how can he who 
has once beheld his own real ideal Self cease to love and 
adore it with his whole mind and with all the faculties 
of the soul? But such things will not be understood by 
those who cannot yet rise above limitation ; let those who 
know them rejoice and worship in silence. 

He who has succeeded in merging the higher elements 
of his soul with that divine Self will know its power in 
his own heart. This principle baptises his soul with 
fire, and he who receives this baptism of fire is ordained 
a priest and a King. He who is full of its influence is 
the true "vicegerent of God," because the supreme 
power of the universe acts through his instrumentality. 
The recognition of this principle fills his heart with a 
peace "which passeth understanding," it attracts the 
affections of men to him, and sheds blessings upon 
every one who approaches his presence. It forgives 
the sins of men, by transforming them into other beings 
who have not sinned and need therefore not to be 
pardoned; it does not require to hear confession to 
give advice, because it understands the innermost 



LIGHT. 243 

thoughts of every being, and its admonishing voice is 
heard in the heart that has learned to understand the 
language of conscience. The development of the power 
to perceive its power confirms men's faith, by enabling 
them to recognise that to be true which they heretofore 
only believed to be true, and being taught by the truth 
itself, they can make no mistake. Its communicates 
with man by being absorbed by man, and by absorbing 
the soul of man into itself; it brings the dying to life, 
because, being immortal, he who is consciously united 
with it enjoys its own immortality; the marriages it cele- 
brates can never be dissolved, because in its power all 
humanity is bound together to one indissoluble whole; 
to separate from it would be death to the part that sepa- 
rates itself from the whole. The world in which this 
principle exists is the sphere of eternal life; it is the 
only true and infallible "church," and its power cannot 
be taken away. This church is truly universal, nothing 
can live without its jurisdiction, because nothing can 
continue to exist without the authority of life. Still it 
has no particular name, requires no other fee for initia- 
tion but self-sacrifice, no ceremonies or rites except the 
"crucifixion" and death of the irrational man. "Heath- 
ens" and "Infidels" may enter it without changing their 
faith ; opinions cease to exist where the truth is revealed. 
But this true Christ is not the Christ of popular Chris- 
tianism. He has long ago been driven away from the 
modern Christian temples, and an idol has occupied his 
place. The money-changers and tradesmen have again 
taken possession of the temple of the soul, sacrificing the 
life-blood of the poor at the altars of wooden gods, clos- 
ing their eyes to the truth and worshipping tinsel, squan- 
dering the wealth of nations for the glorification of the 
illusion of self. The true "Son of Man" is still scoffed 
at by his nominal followers, traduced by his pretended 
friends, tormented by the lusts of the flesh, crucified 
by men who do not recognise in him the only source of 
their life, killed by men in their own hearts, ignorantly 
and foolishly, because they do not know what they are 
doing, and that their own life-substance departs at the 
time when he departs from their life. 



244 MAGIC. 

Modern hypocrisy adores the religion of selfishness 
and rejects the gospel of love. Humanity debases her 
own dignity by crouching at the feet of idols, where she 
should stand up in her own dignity and purity as the 
queen of the whole creation. The soul of humanity is 
still dreaming and has not yet awakened to life. She 
seeks for a god whom she does not know, and cannot 
realise the fact that in herself is that god, and that there 
can be no other god besides him. Men and women clam- 
our for the coming of a god, and yet this god is there 
and everywhere, and ever ready to manifest his pres- 
ence as soon as he is admitted into the heart. 

This unknown god is attainable to all and may be 
recognised by everyone. It is a principle ever ready to 
be born as a power in every heart where the conditions 
for its birth are prepared. It always begins to come to 
life in a "manger" between the elemental and animal 
forces in man. It can only be born in a lowly place, 
because pride and superstition are its enemies, and in a 
heart filled with vanity it would soon perish. The news 
of its birth sends a thrill of pleasure through the physical 
body, and the morning stars in the soul sing together for 
joy, heralding the dawn or the day for the resurrection 
of the celestial spirit. The three magicians from the 
East, Spirit, Soul, and Matter, representing Love, Wis- 
dom, and Power, appear at the manger and offer their 
gifts to the new-born babe. If the king of pride and 
ambition does not succeed in driving it out of the country, 
it begins to grow, and as it grows its divinity becomes 
manifest. It argues with the intellectual powers in the 
temple of the mind and silences their sophistry by its 
superior knowledge. It penetrates into mysteries, which 
intellectuality, born of sensual perceptions, cannot ex- 
plain. Grayheaded material science, superstition hoary 
with age, old logic based upon misconceptions of funda- 
mental truths, give way, and are forced to acknowledge 
the wisdom of the half-grown god. 

Living in the wilderness of material desires, it is vain- 
ly tempted by the devil of selfishness. It cannot be mis- 
led by personal considerations, because being superior 
to them, it has no personal claims. The "devil" can give 



LIGHT. 245 

to it nothing that it does not already possess, because 
being the highest it rules over all that is low. 

This principle is the first emanation of The Absolute. 
It becomes the "only-begotten son" of its father, and 
is as old as the father, because the Absolute could only 
become a "father" at the time when the "son" was born.* 
It is the living Word, and every man is that Word, in 
whom this "son of god" becomes manifest. It is the 
divine self of every man, his own divine ethereal coun- 
terpart without any infirmities, because the latter only 
belong to the terrestrial form. It is not a personality, 
but it may become individualised in man and yet remain 
in its essence impersonal, a living being, ubiquitous, in- 
corruptible, and immortal. This is the great mystery be- 
fore which the intellect, reasoning from particulars to 
universals, stands hopelessly still, but which the soul, 
whose inner spiritual perceptions are alive, beholds with 
astonishment and wonder. Only that which is infinite 
and immortal in man can comprehend infinitude and im- 
mortality. 

As long as the wavering intellect doubts the existence 
of God, it cannot become conscious of his existence, 
because only the steady light of unclouded reason can 
penetrate into the depths where divine wisdom dwells. 
Mere "belief" is a confession of ignorance; true faith 
is based upon experience. We cannot be convinced of 
the existence of something we do not know, and of which 
'we are unconscious, except by becoming conscious of its 
existence. Consciousness, knowledge, and realisation of 
'the existence of something can only begin at the moment 
when that something begins to become conscious within 
ourselves. We may search for the god within us, but we 
cannot artificially bring him to life. We can prepare the 
conditions under which he may manifest his conscious- 
ness within ourselves, by divesting the mind from all 
predilections and prejudices; the divine principle awakes 
within us by the power of its own grace. Such a grace 
is not a favour conferred by a partial, whimsical, and 
personal god, it is the effect of a free will which has 
the power to grant its own prayers. As well may an 

•Bible: St. John i. 1; Hebrews i. 3. 



246 MAGIC. 

acorn enclosed in a stone pray to be developed into an 
oak as a man whose heart is filled with desires for the 
low ask to become conscious of the high. To put im- 
plicit belief in the statement of bonze or priest is weak- 
ness, to keep the soul pure, so that it can be taught by 
wisdom itself is strength, to arrive at conviction through 
the knowledge of the soul confers the only true faith. 

Tennyson speaks of the beginning of true faith when 
he says — 

"We have but faith, we cannot know, 
A beam in darkness, let it grow." 

When the beam has grown, it constitutes spiritual knowl- 
edge, which is identical with the living power of faith. 

When the divine being becomes conscious in the per- 
sonal man, the body begins to feel new sensations, the 
pulse begins to throb with more vigour, the animal forces 
stirred up in their "hells" by the arrival of the new 
light, become more active, pains will be experienced in 
various parts of his body, and the candidate for im- 
mortality will physically experience a process resembling 
the martyrdom of the crucified Christ.* The penetra- 
tion of the mortal by the new life will necessarily cause 
suffering until the lower elements are entirely subjected 
and that which is impure eliminated. 

There is no salvation except through suffering; pains 
accompany man's entrance into the world, pains accom- 
pany his regeneration. The low must die so that the 
high may live. Only he who has tasted the bitterness 
of evil can fully realise the sweetness of good, only he 
who has suffered the heat of the day can fully appreciate 
the cool of the evening breeze. He who has lived in 
darkness will know the true value of light when he enters 
its realm. 

What is true in regard to individual man is equally 
true in regard to humanity as a whole, but that which 
may be accomplished in a few suitable individual organ- 
isms in a comparatively short time, will require ages 
to take place in the body of humanity as a whole. 

"Though other things grow fair against the sun, 
Yet fruits that blossom first will first be ripe." 

Othello, ii. J. 
* The pains referred to are the result of the penetrating power of 
the spirit, infusing a new life into the physical form. 



LIGHT. 24? 

Infinite love radiating from the centre of the All, 
eternally descends into the hearts of mankind. # Divine 
wisdom has no separate will of its own, but is doing 
the will of the Father. Christ takes upon His shoulders 
the sins of the world, for he who has entered into the 
realisation of divine truth has stepped out of the realm 
of ignorance and illusions and becomes free, is without 
sin, He can gain no personal benefit by His descent into 
matter; being perfection itself, He needs no further per- 
fection.* As men and women become conscious of His 
divine presence, they become aware not merely of their 
own individual evils, but of the sufferings of humanity 
as a whole ; they begin to suffer with and for each other, 
they recognise in the divinity in humanity the universal 
link that binds them all together into one harmonious 
whole. 

Realising their high nature as sons of the eternal God, 
they die to all that is low, and the more they die to it 
the more will they become alive in the only true, real, 
and immortal life. The motto of the ancient Rosicrucian 
fraternity was : In Deo nascimur, in Jesu morimur, revivi- 
scimus in Spiritu Sancto; that is to say, they recognised 
that their souls were born from the universal fountain 
of all; they died to their lower natures by entering into 
the spiritual body of Christ, and gained eternal life by 
being penetrated, illuminated, nourished and glorified by 
the light of divine truth. 

The temple where they worshipped was that of the 
"Holy Ghost," the spirit of divine wisdom, pervading 
the soul of the world. This they represented by the 
symbols of Mercury and the earth joined in one. 

These ideas are not new, they have not come into 
existence with the advent of modern Christianity; they 
are eternal truths, as old as the world, and they have 
been represented in various fables and allegories among 
the nations of this globe. In the "Old Testament" we 
find the doctrine of salvation represented in the story of 
Noah's ark. Noah represents the spiritual man, and the 
ark the plane of divine self-consciousness. Only those 
elements of the psychic organism of man,. which enter 

•Bhagavad Gita iii. 22. T 



248 MAGIC. 

this spiritual realm can be saved, while those who re- 
main in a lower state are doomed to destruction. Upon 
the waters of thought floats the ship containing many 
compartments; the window of knowledge is open to en- 
able the inner man to look out upon the watery waste. 
The intellectual raven is sent out to discover dry land, 
but it can find no place to rest, and returns to the ark; 
the dove of spiritual knowledge alone can find solid 
ground in the realm of the spirit; it returns carrying 
the emblem of peace, the doubts recede, and the ark is 
turned into a temple resting upon the top of the moun- 
tain of self knowledge. 

Blessed is he whose ark during his terrestrial life is 
guided upon this Ar-ar-at of true Faith; it will enable 
him patiently and with indifference to bear the ills of 
terrestrial life until the soul is released from its bonds, 
and returns to its home in the eternal kingdom, having 
become separated from all the attractions of earth. 

How grand and sublime are the mysteries of true 
religion! How superior is knowledge of the soul to 
speculative science ! How infinitely great the living spirit 
of Truth! 

Those who cling to external forms, cling to illusion. 
To convert an ignorant person by substituting one form 
of illusion for another is useless, and the money and 
labour expended for such "conversions" is wasted. Ig- 
norance exchanged for ignorance remains ignorance 
still; a change of opinion cannot establish self-knowl- 
edge and an imaginary knowledge does not make a man 
wise. 

If a man has religion, it matters little by what name 
he may call it, or under what form he may attempt 
to express that which cannot be expressed in a form. 
The Buddhist, who looks upon the image of Buddha as 
a figurative representation of a living principle, and who, 
in memory of a once living person in whom that prin- 
ciple found its fullest expression, and whose example he 
wishes to follow, offers flowers and fruits at his shrine, 
is as near the truth as the Christian who sees in the 
picture of Jesus of Nazareth the representation of his 
highest ideal, for it is not the person, however much he 



LIGHT. 249 

may be venerated, that ought to be worshipped but Di- 
vine Wisdom itself, without whose light Gautama could 
not have become a Buddha, nor Jesus a Christ. 

There has been a great deal of time and labour spent 
to prove or disprove that the founder of Christianity 
was a person living in Palestine at the beginning of the 
Christian era. To know whether or not such a person 
by the name of Jesus, or perhaps Jehoshua, ever existed, 
and whether he existed at the time indicated by theo- 
logians, may be a matter of great historical interest, but 
it cannot be of supreme importance for our salvation; 
because the personality of even a God incarnate is only 
a mask, and the knowledge of another man is not our 
own. 

The "Light of Asia" says : 

"Within thyself salvation must be found" 

and Angelus Silesius (John Scheffler) expresses the 
same truth when he says: 

"The cross of Golgotha can never save thy soul, 
The cross in thine own heart alone can make thee whole." 

The doctrines of the Jesus of the Gospel grow in 
sublimity in proportion as their secret meaning is under- 
stood; the tales of the Bible in regard to His deeds and 
the miracles which He performed, and which to the 
superficial observer appear incredible and absurd, repre- 
sent • eternal truths and psychological processes which 
are not merely things of the past, but which occur even 
now within the realm of the soul of man, and in pro- 
portion as man comes nearer to the true living Christ, 
veil after veil drops from his eyes. 

The theory of the redemption of man does not date 
from the time when the historical Christ is supposed to 
have been born. The history of Christ finds its proto- 
type in the history of Krischna. The Greeks taught us 
redemption of the soul under the allegory of Amor and 
Psyche. Psyche (the human soul) enjoys the embraces 
of her divine lover every night (in each incarnation). 
She feels his divine presence and hears the voice of 
intuition in her heart, but she is not permitted to see 
the source from which that voice proceeds. At a time 
when the god is sleeping her curiosity awakes and she 



250 MAGIC. 

wishes to see him objectively. She lights the lamp of 
the intellect and proceeds to examine critically the source 
of her happiness ; but at that moment the god disappears. 
Despairingly she wanders through the lower regions of 
her intellect and through the sphere of sensual percep- 
tions. She cannot find her god by the power of reasoning 
from the material plane. Ready to die (givin up her self- 
will), she is saved by the power of love. Losing her 
"self" in love, she becomes united with him, knowing 
his attributes, which are now her own. 

Modern Christianity has not destroyed the Olympian 
gods, it only destroyed the forms in which they were 
represented. They were allegorical representations of 
truths, and truths cannot be killed. The laws of nature 
are the same today as they were at the time of Tiberius ; 
Christianism has only changed the symbols and called 
old things by new names. Dead heathen idols have been 
resurrected in the form of Roman Catholic saints. 

Modern writers have represented the same old truths 
in other forms, in prose and in verse. Goethe repre- 
sents it beautifully in his "Faust." Dr. Faust, the man 
of great intellect and celebrated for his learning, in spite 
of all his scientific accomplishments, is unable to find 
the truth. 

"The unknown is the useful thing to know; 
That which we know is useless for our purpose." 

Despairing at the impotency and insufficiency of specu- 
lative research, he enters into a pact with the principle 
of evil. By its assistance he attains wealth, love, and 
power, he enjoys all that the senses are capable to en- 
joy, still feeling intuitively that selfish enjoyment can- 
not confer true happiness. Neither the splendour of 
the imperial court, nor the beauty of Helen of Troy, who 
returns from the land of shadows at his request, nor the 
orgies of the Blocksberg, where all human passions are 
let loose without restraint, can satisfy his craving. Lord 
of the Earth, he sees only a single hut which is not yet 
his own, and he takes even that, regardless of the fate 
of its inhabitants. Still he is not satisfied until, after 
having recovered a part of land from the ocean by his 
labours, he contemplates the happiness which others may 



LIGHT. 251 

enjoy by reaping the benefit of his work. This is the 
first unselfish thought that takes root in his mind. It 
fills him with extreme happiness, and in the contempla- 
tion of the happiness of others his sense of self dies and 
his impersonal soul is saved. 

The soul knows that it is, but it cannot intellectually 
and critically examine itself unless it steps out of itself, 
and, stepping out of itself, it ceases to be one. The eye 
cannot see itself without the aid of a mirror; good be- 
comes only known to us after we have experienced evil, 
to become wise we must first become foolish and gain 
experience by eating of the forbidden fruit. A spiritual 
power not having been embodied in a form, would not 
know the nature of freedom. To learn the conditions 
of existence man becomes embodied in form and acquires 
knowledge; having gained that knowledge, form is no 
longer required. 

The selfish desire for existence imprisons the inner 
man into a mortal form ; he who during his life on Earth 
conquers all selfish desire for existence becomes free. 
The divine Buddha, resting under the Boddhi-tree of 
wisdom, and having his mind fixed on the chain of cau- 
sation, said : "Ignorance is the source of all evil. From 
ignorance spring the Sankharas (tendencies) of three- 
fold nature-productions of body, of speech, and thought 
(during the previous life) ; from the Sankharas origin- 
ates (relative) consciousness, from consciousness spring 
name and form, from this the six regions (the six 
senses) ; from this springs desire, from desire attach- 
ment, from attachment existence, birth, old age, death, 
grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair. By 
the destruction of ignorance the Sankharas are destroyed, 
and their consciousness, name, and form, the six regions, 
contact, sensation, desire, attachment, existence, and its 
consequent evils. From ignorance spring all evils, from 
self knowledge comes cessation of this mass of misery. 
The truly enlightened one stands, dispelling the hosts of 
illusions like the sun that illuminates the sky." 

The power which destroys selfishness and the sense of 
personality is the same which caused the existence of 
man ; it is the power of universal love, and the more the 



252 MAGIC. 

love of a person expands over all others the more will 
the consciousness of personality be diffused. We esteem 
a person according to the degree in which he prefers 
common interests to the interests of his own personality. 
We admire generosity, and unselfishness, and benevo- 
lence, and yet such qualities are absurd and useless, if 
we believe that the highest object of man's existence is 
his own personal happiness on the physical plane; be- 
cause the highest happiness in that plane consists in the 
greatest amount of possessions pertaining to that plane. 
To give is to experience a personal loss. But if man 
strives for spiritual power, to sacrifice personal posses- 
sions will be his gain, because the less he is attracted by 
personal possessions the more will his soul become 
free. To give with the view of expecting some benefit 
in return is useless for such a purpose, because a person 
having such an object in view simply gives up one per- 
sonal possession for another. He is a tradesman that 
clings to his goods, and is only willing to part with some- 
thing good provided he can get something better in ex- 
change. 

According to the unselfishness and the spiritual power 
of a person his individual influence may extend over a 
family, a village, a town, a country, or over the whole 
Earth. Every one desires influence, and seeks to obtain 
power by obtaining wealth and position. But the in- 
fluence gained by such possessions is not spiritual power. 
A fool may be a pope, a king, or a millionary, and people 
bow in obedience before him on account of his position 
and wealth. They may despise his person and adore his 
possessions, which he himself adores, and to which his 
person is as subject as the lowest one of his slaves. Such 
a person is not a commander; it is his wealth that com- 
mands him and the others. His wealth and not he is, in 
such a case, the object of the world's admiration. When 
his wealth is squandered, those who used to crouch at his 
feet spurn him away from their table. The spiritual 
power of a person is independent of such external condi- 
tions, a virtuous person is esteemed in proportion as his 
qualities become known, and the spiritually strong exerts 
a powerful invisible influence over all his surroundings. 



LIGHT. 253 

Man may be compared with a planet revolving around 
its own centre and circling around an invisible sun. 
Above the orbit in which he turns is light, and below is 
the darkness. The light above and the darkness below 
attract him; farther he travels from the invisible sun, 
from which the light proceeds, the more will he approach 
the shadow, and having reached a certain point at which 
either one or the other attraction ceases, he will either 
rise up to the source of light or sink into the darkness. A 
change from darkness to light, from evil to good, is only 
possible as long as man, in his revolutions around the 
centre of his own self, has not transcended the orbit 
where the attractions of light and shadows are equal. 
Having transcended that orbit, no return is possible. 
Only he who has attained the knowledge of self will be 
able to choose free, because he will know the nature of 
that which he chooses; the blind have no freedom of 
choice. The unpardonable sin is to knowingly and wil- 
fully reject spiritual truth when it becomes manifest in 
the heart. In a certain sense all sins are "unpardonable," 
because they all cause effects, which have to become 
exhausted before they can cease; but if a person know- 
ingly and zvil fully rejects the truth revealed to him by 
his own inner self-consciousness, it proves that he loves 
evil better than good, and that his nature is evil. He who 
is ignorant is not responsible for his acts. But he who 
knows the truth by its interior self-revelation in his own 
consciousness and rejects it, condemns himself. Truth 
alone will survive in the end while evil will perish in 
evil. It is therefore dangerous for men to seek for occult 
spiritual knowledge for the gratification of scientific curi- 
osity, before they have become sufficiently wise to select 
only that which is true. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THEOSOPHY. 

"He to whom time is like eternity, and eternity like time, Is 
free." — Jackob Boehme. 

HH O picture the eternal and intellectually incompre- 
* hensible in forms, and to describe the unimagin- 
able in words, is a task whose difficulty has been 
experienced by all who ever attempted it. The formless 
cannot be described in forms, it can only be represented 
by allegories which can only be understood by those 
whose minds are open to the spiritual illumination of 
truth. The misunderstanding of allegorical expressions 
in the sacred books has led to religious wars, to the tor- 
turing, burning, and killing of thousands of innocent vic- 
tims, it has caused the living wives of dead Hindus to be 
burned with the corpses of their husbands, it has caused 
ignorant men and women to throw themselves before the 
wheels of the car of the Juggernath, it causes the endless 
quarrels between some 200 Christian sects, and while the 
truth unites all humanity into one harmonious whole, the 
misunderstanding of it produces innumerable discords 
and diseases. 

Far, in the unfathomable abyss of space, far beyond 
the reach of the imagination of man, unapproachable 
even by the highest and purest angel or thought, and 
nevertheless omnipresent in his own essence and power, 
self-existent, eternal, resplendent in his own glory is 
the Shining One, whose Centre is rest, peace and happi- 
ness, whose hearlj is invisible Fire, whose rays are Light 
and Life, pervading the Universe to its utmost limits, 
penetrating every form and causing it to live and to 
grow. Their harmonious vibrations are undulating 
through space, nourishing all animate and inanimate be- 
ings with the substance of Love. Meeting with the sleep- 
ing forms of thought in space, the products of a previous 
day of creation, the divine rays of wisdom endow them 

254 



THEOSOPHY. 255 

with life, causing them to become living systems of 
worlds, chained together by the power of mutual recog- 
nition, manifesting itself as attraction and guiding them 
on in their restless revolutions. Penetrating into the 
hearts of animals and men, they create sensation and 
relative consciousness, cause the form to feel, to per- 
ceive and to know its surroundings, call into life the 
emotions, instincts, and the power of reasoning. Pene- 
trating deep into the hearts of men, they kindle there the 
divine fire in whose light man may see the image of the 
Shining One, and know it to be his own immortal ideal, 
to be realised within himself. 

But it is beyond the power of man to describe in lan- 
guage that which cannot be described, to combine words, 
so that the reader may form an intellectual conception 
of something, for which no intellectual conception exists, 
because it is beyond the experience of the limited mind. 
In the presence of the highest, the unthinkable ideal, 
intellectual labour ceases, and spiritual recognition begins. 
"The secret things belong to the Lord;" only divine wis- 
dom itself can know that which is divine; it being the 
self-knowledge of God in man; the self-realisation of 
truth. Intellectual labour is a function which man shares 
with certain animals ; but the prerogative of spiritual man 
is to realize within his own self-consciousness the pres- 
ence of Truth, to become himself one with the God of 
the universe and join His self-knowledge, and this self- 
realisation of truth is called Divine Wisdom or Theo- 
sophia. 

In this eternal universal source of all that exists is 
all magic power contained, even to the extent of creating 
new worlds. The realisation of its existence is the 
Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life or Universal 
Panacea, which can be had everywhere and at any time 
without expense by every one. It is attainable only 
by man, because the lower animals are not yet far enough 
advanced to be used as vehicles for the manifestation 
of divine wisdom; but he whom it has awakened to life 
shares its attributes and is a living temple of God. The 
man whom this principle has not awakened from its sleep 
is merely an intellectual animal, and can possess no 



256 MAGIC. 

spiritual or magical powers. Some modern "philoso- 
phers," who say that man has no magical powers, are 
right from their own point of view; for the "man" 
known to modern science has no spiritual life and there- 
fore no spiritual power; the real man only begins to 
exist when he awakens to the realisation of his divine 
nature. True philosophers have recognised this fact. 
Schopenhauer says: "In consequence of the ac- 
tion of 'grace,' the entire being of man becomes re- 
modelled, so that he desires no longer anything of that 
for which he was craving heretofore, and becomes so 
to say a new man.* 

Everything in nature has a threefold nature, and like- 
wise the allegories of the sacred books of the East as 
well as those of the West have a threefold meaning- — 
an exoteric, an esoteric, and a spiritual signification. 
The vulgar, the learned as well as the unlearned, can 
see only the external side, which is often so absurd, 
that its very absurdity should serve as a warning to 
people endowed with reason not to accept such fables in 
their literal meaning. Those who are willing to learn 
can be instructed, but they that believe that they already 
know, refuse to be taught, For this reason the man- 
appointed guardians of the truth, the learned teachers 
of science and religion are often the last ones to recog- 
nise that which is true. 

How can we enter the path? — Only in practical experi- 
ence is life. Petrified speculative science, mouldy specu- 
lative philosophy, and dried-up speculative theology stand 
in our way. Humanity awakes from its slumber and 
asks for bread, but receives only a stone. It turns to 
science, but science is silent, wraps itself up in its vanity 
and turns away; it turns to philosophy, and old philoso- 
phy answers, but its talk is an incomprehensible jargon, 
and confuses matters still more. It turns to theology, 
but theology threatens the obnoxious questioner with 
curses, and bids him to be satisfied with a blind faith. 
But the people, as a whole, are no longer satisfied with 
such answers ; they are no longer contented with the as- 

* "God is as much in a stick of wood as in a human being-; but 
the difference is that a stick of wood knows nothing of God; while 
man may attain the realisation of his presence in him." — Eckhart. 



THEOSOPHY. 857 

sertion that the truth is to be known to a few privileged 
classes, and that they themselves must remain ignorant. 
Wisdom is not to be monopolised by any sectarian body 
or any Society. 

If we wish to enter the path to infinite life, the first 
requirement is 

TO KNOW. 

Knowledge is the perception and understanding of truth. 
We can only know that which we perceive. There are 
two principal modes of perception, namely, seeing and 
feeling. Each of these modes, if unaccompanied by the 
other, is unreliable; only if we simultaneously see and 
feel a thing do we experience that it exists. 

Thousands of years have passed away since mankind 
first saw the sun and the stars, and modern telescopes 
have brought them nearer to us. Nevertheless our knowl- 
edge of these cosmic bodies and the conditions of life 
existing upon them, consists merely of speculations and 
opinions, which may be overthrown at any time, when 
our means for observation are supplanted by better ones. 
We give names to the substances discovered by the spec- 
troscope, but we will not know the true nature of the 
stars as long as we are not able to partake of their con- 
sciousness and experience the qualities of life and char- 
acters embodied in their forms. 

For thousands of years mankind has intuitively felt 
the presence of the Unknown. Those who experienced 
the presence of the universal Spirit, know that it exists. 
Generations after generations have disappeared from 
earth after spending their lives in vain efforts to know 
objectively that God whose power they felt in their 
hearts ; but whom they could not see with their eyes. 

If we are able to see and to feel the external qualities 
of a thing, we may understand what these qualities 
are, but we will still be ignorant of its interior character. 
To know its spirit it will be necessary to enter into its 
spirit, and this can only be done by the spirit of man, 
not by his external senses. The spiritual principle in 
man, if once awakened to self-consciousness, has attri- 



258 MAGIC. 

butes and functions far superior to those of the external 
man; it has the power to perceive, to see and to feel 
the internal qualities of things which are imperceptible 
to the external senses ; it can identify itself with the ob- 
ject of its observation and partake of its consciousness, 
it becomes for the time being united with that object 
and shares its feelings, it partakes of its subjective sen- 
sations. 

Thus does a lover partake of the joys and sorrows of 
the object he loves, and feels as if he were one with it in 
spirit ; for love is the power by which such a divine state 
is attained, it penetrates all things, and coming from the 
heart it goes to the heart. 

What is it that prevents us to love and to know all 
things but our own dislikes and misconceptions? We 
do not see things as they are but as we imagine them 
to be. He who desires to know all things should not 
look upon them with his own eyes, but with the eyes of 
the truth; he should not think the thoughts suggested 
by external appearances, but he should let Divine Wis- 
dom do his thinking within his mind. 

To obtain true knowledge we must be able to receive 
the light of the truth ; we must free our minds from the 
learned rubbish that has accumulated there through the 
perverted methods of education of modern civilization. 
The more false doctrines we have learned the more 
difficult will be the labour to make room for the truth, 
and it may take years to unlearn that which we have 
learned at the expense of a great deal of labour, money 
and time. The Bible says that "we must become like 
little children before we can enter the kingdom of truth." 
The principal thing to know is to know our own true 
Self; if we know ourselves, we will know that we are to 
be the kings of the universe. The essential Man is a 
Son of God, he is something incomparably greater, far 
more sublime and far more powerful than the insignifi- 
cant changeable and impermanent and unconscious being 
described as "man" in our scientific works on anthro- 
pology. 

Well may Man who knows his true nature be proud 
of his nobility and power; well may the man of earth 



THEOSOPHY. 259 

be ashamed of his weakness. The real man is a divine 
being, whose power extends as far as his thoughts can 
reach; the illusive man is a compound of semi-animal 
forces, subject to their caprices and whims, with a spark 
of divine fire in him to enable him to control them, but 
which spark is only too frequently left to smoulder and 
vanish. The former is immortal, the latter exists a few 
years among the illusions of life. The real man realizes 
his own immortality; the deluded illusion, having the 
appearance of a human being deludes itself with the 
hope of obtaining permission by the favour of some 
personal god to carry its falsehoods into a sphere, in 
which only the true exists.* 

There are three kinds of knowledge, the useful, the 
useless. and the harmful. The useless knowledge is the 
knowledge of, or rather the adherence to, illusions and 
falsehoods ; it is no real knowledge, although it embraces 
a great deal of what is considered of great importance 
in civilized countries that men should know. It is true 
that modern science has on many occasions drawn away 
a part of the veil which hides the wonders of Wisdom 
in Nature; but as our science has not reached the foun- 
dation of truth; it is mixed up with illusions. Our sci- 
entific systems are continually subject to change, and 
what is considered to be final truth by one generation, 
is often rejected as false by the next. Our "scientific 
attainments" confer no real knowledge of fundamental 
law of nature, because they are based upon ignorance, 
in regard to the fountain of All, and, however logical 
the deductions made from false premises may be, false- 
hoods can produce only falsehood. 

Whrt can be more erroneous than the assertion of 
rationalistic speculators, that the intellect is a product 
of the material organization of the physical body; that 
life is a product of the mechanical action of a dead force ; 
that effects can be produced without any adequate causes ; 
that something can come out of something having ele- 
ments therein capable to produce it ; that man's mind ex- 
ists within the narrow limits of his skull ; that man can 
know nothing except what he perceives with his external 

* Revelations xxi. 27. 



260 MAGIC. 

senses; that consciousness is the result of the chemical 
action of unconscious substances; that man can will, 
think, imagine, love, and hate without having a soul ; that 
wisdom, knowledge, spiritual perception, prophecy, etc., 
were results of pathological conditions of the body and 
other endless absurdities and scientific hallucinations. 

As long as the true nature of man is not known, his 
lower interests are mistaken for his higher ones. Sci- 
entific attainments are often only used for the purpose 
of obtaining the power to speculate on the ignorance of 
those that have no such intellectual acquirements, and 
by taking advantage of their beliefs to obtain money 
and material comfort. Such scientific attainments may 
be good for such purposes, but they retard the progress 
of man in a spiritual direction, because they make men 
more selfish, and cause them to worship matter; they 
are therefore useless for the only true and permanent 
interest of man. 

If science wishes to find the foundation of truth, it 
must begin to realise the unity of the universe and know 
that the world of appearances manifested in nature is a 
revelation of truth originating in divine wisdom. This 
realisation cannot be attained by arguments and infer- 
ences, it is only realised by the power of universal love, 
which is the recognition of truth. 

"To bring thee to thy God, love takes the shortest route; 
The way which science leads is but a round about."* 

The harmful knowledge consists in scientific attain- 
ments without any corresponding perception of the moral 
aspect of truth. It is only partial knowledge, because it 
recognises only a part of the truth. A high intellectual 
development without any corresponding growth of spirit- 
uality is a curse to mankind. Knowledge to be good 
must be illuminated by Wisdom ; knowledge without wis- 
dom is dangerous to possess. Misunderstanding and 
misapplication of truths are the sources of evil. 

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." 

Such an attainment of knowledge without wisdom 
may become detrimental. The invention of the fulmi- 
nates of mercury, of gunpowder and nitro-glycerine, has 

* Angelus Silesius. 



THEOSOPHY. 261 

caused much suffering to a large part of humanity. Not 
that the substances applied, or the forces which are 
liberated, are intrinsically evil, but their misapplication 
in the hands of those without wisdom leads to evil results. 
If all men were intelligent enough to understand the 
laws which govern the world, and wise enough to employ 
their knowledge for good purposes only, no evil results 
would follow. 

One of the most harmful acquisitions is the so-called 
"religious knowledge;" that is to say the holding on 
to theological doctrines which are wrong or misunder- 
stood, because it is unaccompanied by any unfoldment 
of true spirituality. Such a "religion" results in bigotry, 
hypocrisy and intolerance ; it is based upon fear and not 
upon faith. A religion without universal love is an ab- 
surdity; because that Love is the link which relates man 
to God. A faith without love is only a superstition. 
Nevertheless it is that foolish "faith" which clamours 
the most for its rights. 

"Faith without love will make the greatest roar and din; 
The cask sounds loudest when there is nought within."* 

If we proceed a step further and imagine intellectual 
but wicked and selfish people possessed not only of the 
power to employ explosives, and poisonous drugs, to 
injure others, but able to send their own degrading- 
poisonous thoughts to a distance, to leave at will the 
prison-house of the physical body to kill or injure others, 
the most disastrous results would follow. Such forbidden 
knowledge has been and is sometimes possessed by peo- 
ple with criminal tendencies, a fact which is universally 
known in the East, and upon the possibility and actuality 
of such facts have been established on many occasions, 
and among others by many of the witch trials of the 
Middle Ages. Modern scientists may now laugh at these 
facts, but the doctors of law, of medicine, and of theology 
of their times, were as sure of their knowledge as modern 
representatives of science are of their own opinions to- 
day, and the former had as many intelluctual capacities 
as the latter. The only difference is that the former 

* Angelus Silesius. 



263 MAGIC. 

knew these facts, but gave a wrong explanation; the lat- 
ter find it easier to ignore than to explain. 

Man is continually surrounded by unseen influences, 
and the astral plane is swarming with entities and forces, 
which are acting upon him for good or for evil, accord- 
ing to his good or evil inclinations. At the present state 
of evolution man has a physical body, which is admirably 
adapted to modify the influence from the astral plane, 
and to shelter him against the "monsters of the deep." 

If the physical body is in good health, it acts as an 
armour, and, moreover, man has the power, by a judi- 
cious exercise of his will, to so concentrate the odic aura 
by which he is surrounded, as to render his armour im- 
penetrable to the influences of the astral world and its 
inhabitants; but if by bad health, by a careless expen- 
diture of vitality, or by the practice of mediumship, he 
disperses his protective power, his physical armour will 
become weakened and unable to guard him; he becomes 
the victim of elementaries and elemental forces, his 
mental faculties lose their balance, and sooner or 
later he will, like the symbolical Adam and Eve, know 
that he is naked, and exposed to influences which he 
cannot repel. Such is the result for which those ignor- 
antly crave who wish to obtain knowledge without cor- 
responding morality. To supply the ignorant or weak 
with powers of destruction would be like providing chil- 
dren with gunpowder and matches for play. 

Only an intelligent and well-balanced mind can dis- 
criminate properly and dive into the hidden mysteries 
of Nature. "Only the pure in heart can see God." He 
who has reached that stage need not search the world 
for a person to instruct him; the higher intelligences 
will be attracted to him, and become his instructor, in 
the same manner as he himself is attracted by the beauty 
of an animal or of a flower. 

A harp does not invent sound but obeys the hand of 
a master, and the more perfect the instrument the sweet- 
er will be the music. A diamond does not originate 
light, but reflects it, and the purer the diamond the purer 
will be its lustre. Man does not invent or create thought, 
will, and intelligence. He is a mirror in which the 



THEOSOPHY. 263 

thoughts of the world are reflected, an instrument through 
which the will of nature expresses itself; a pearl filled 
with a drop of water from the universal ocean of intel- 
ligence. 

The only true knowledge is the knowledge of one's 
own true self, which knows neither "good" nor "evil," 
but is the realisation of truth. He who ate from the 
tree of the knowledge of illusion has died; because by 
experiencing the illusion of self, he has died to his spirit- 
ual nature and become an illusion himself.* If you 
eat of the tree of divine knowledge ; which is the tree of 
life, your illusion will die and you will live. Your per- 
sonality will be swallowed up by a realisation of the 
fact that "you" are nothing, and that God in you is the 
only true self and the All. Realising this, you will not 
be "as one of the gods;" but a self-conscious power in 
God, unlimited and immortal. 

How can self-knowledge be attained ? The answer is : 
"By the realisation of truth." The truth is everywhere, 
always ready to manifest itself in you and around you, 
if you only permit it to become manifest. Wisdom re- 
quires no other teacher but wisdom itself. Rise up to 
it in your soul and it will descend upon you and fill your 
heart. He who ascends to the top of a high mountain 
need not enquire for somebody to bring him pure air. 
Pure air surrounds him there on all sides. The realm 
of wisdom is not limited, and he whose mind is receptive 
will not suffer from want of divine grace to feed his 
holy aspiration. 

The school in which the occulist graduates has many 
classes, each class representing a life. The days of va- 
cation may arrive before the lesson is learned, and what 
has been learned may be forgotten during the time of 
vacation; but still the impression remains, and a thing 
once learned is easily learned again. This accounts for 
the different talents with which men are endowed, and 
for their propensities for good or for evil. No effort 
is lost, every cause creates a corresponding effect, no 
favours are granted, no injustice takes place. Blind to 
bribes and deaf to appeals is the law of justice, dealing 

•Gen. ii. 17. 



264 MAGIC. 

its treasures out to every one according to his capacities 
to receive, but he who has no selfish desire for reward, 
and no cowardly fear of punishment, but who dares to 
act rightly because he will not do wrong, identifies him- 
self with the law, and in the equilibrium of the law will 
he find his Power. 

The second requirement is 

TO WILL. 

If we are not willing to receive the truth we will not 
obtain it. 

Men believe that they love the truth, but there are 
few who loving for its own sake desire it. They desire 
welcome truths; those that are unwelcome are rejected. 
Opinions which flatter the vanity and are in harmony 
with accustomed modes of thought are accepted; strange 
truths are regarded with astonishment and driven away 
from the door. Men are often afraid of that which 
they do not know, and, not knowing the truth, they are 
afraid to receive it. They ask new truths for their 
passports, and if they do not bear the stamp of some 
fashionable authority they are looked upon as illegiti- 
mate children, and are not permitted to grow. 

How shall we learn to love the truth f By learning to 
know it. How can we know the truth? By learning to 
love it. The deluded asks for external proofs, but the 
wise requires no other certificate for the truth but its 
own revelation. There can be no difference between 
speculative and practical knowledge ; because knowledge 
is one, an opinion based upon mere speculation is no 
knowledge. Knowledge can only be attained by specula- 
tion, if the speculation is accompanied by experience. 
Those who want to know the truth must practice it ; those 
who cannot practice it will not know it ; speculation with- 
out practice is only a deceitful dream. 

Man can have no actual desire for a thing which he 
has never experienced, and which he therefore not knows. 
How can we love a thing of which we know not that 
it exists? How can we know its existence, except by 
realising its presence? How can we realise its presence 



THEOSOPHY. 365 

if we do not enjoy it? How can we enjoy it if we do 
not love it? Neither inductive nor deductive reasoning 
can give us a realisation of truth. Divine Reason itself 
alone can cause it to become manifest in ourselves. 

To know that a thing is good, is to desire it; for it is 
a law acting within the constitution of man, no less than 
among the planets, that we should be attracted to that 
which we know to be good and be repulsed by that which 
we know to be evil. A strong desire to be good, causes 
man to perform good actions ; a desire to be evil, causes 
him to commit evil deeds. Man is the product of his 
own thoughts and acts; if he thinks and acts good, he 
becomes good; if he thinks and acts evil, he becomes 
evil. In an occult sense "willing" is identical with 
"feeling;" for the substance of the Will, if infused with 
the consciousness of the Spirit, feels and grasps its ob- 
ject. Willing, knowing, and acting are ultimately iden- 
tical; because we can only will what we know, and 
we can only know that of which we have an experience. 

The only way to obtain true practical knowledge of 
spiritual truths is by the practice of the truth — in other 
words, the awakening of the inner consciousness to the 
recognition of truth existing within oneself. Only a 
mind which has been purified from all selfish desires, 
and is filled with a strong determination to learn the 
truth, is thereby "duly and truly prepared" to enter the 
temple of wisdom. Everytime that a person, either for 
selfish purposes or to gratify the whim of another, or for 
any other personal consideration, gives his consent to 
something, of which his reason or conscience tells him 
that it ought not to be; however insignificant such an 
act may be ; it will nevertheless involve for him a loss of 
a certain amount of will. 

Man is chained to the kingdom of his illusions with 
a thousand chains. The inhabitants of his earthly soul 
appear before him in their most seductive forms. If 
they are driven away they change their masks and ap- 
pear in some other form. But the chains by which man 
is bound are forged by his own desire. His vices do not 
cling to him against his will. He clings to them, and 
they will desert him as soon as he rises up in the strength 



266 MAGIC. 

and dignity of his manhood and shakes them off. There 
is a method, by which we may, without any active effort, 
obtain that which we desire, and this is that we should 
desire nothing except what the divine spirit wills within 
our own heart. 

The third requirement is 

TO DARE. 

We must dare to act and throw off low desires, instead 
of waiting inactively until they desert us. We must 
dare to tear ourselves loose from accustomed habits, ir- 
rational thoughts, and selfish considerations, and from 
everything that is an impediment to our recognition of 
truth. We must dare to conquer ourselves and the 
world by becoming like a disinterested spectator, taking 
no part in the performance,* — not on account of any 
stupid indifference or mournful acquiescence to the de- 
crees of fat, nor on account of being a "pessimist" or 
a misanthrope; but on account of having outgrown the 
follies of the lower world and realising the beauties of 
the high. We must learn to overcome our own ignorance, 
dare to face tht ridicule of the ignorant, the vilifications 
of bigots, the haughtiness of the vain, the contempt of 
the learned, and the envy of the small ; .dare to proclaim 
the truth if it is useful to do so, and dare to be silent if 
taunted by the fool.f We must dare to face poverty, 
suffering, and isolation, be superior to all ills that may 
affect us, and act under all circumstances according to 
our highest conception of truth. 

All this might be easily accomplished, if the will of 
man were free; if man were his own master and not 
bound with the chains of the soul; but man is only free 
to a certain extent. Man may perform certain acts and 
leave others undone if he chooses ; but his wisdom de- 
termines his choice. A man knowing and wise has the 
power to will that which he does not desire personally, 
and not to will that to which his desires attract him. To 
make the will free, action is required, and each action 
strengthens the will, and each unselfish deed increases 

* Bhagavad Gita. 
t Prov. xxvi. 4. 



THEOSOPHY. B67 

its power. There is only one divine Law and one divine 
Will; the Will of Divine Wisdom. He who follows the 
law executes the will of God : he who opposes it may 
become individually strong in his self-will ; but will finally 
be crushed by the opposing force, which is immeasurably 
stronger than he. Dare to obey the Law, and you will 
become your own Master, and the Lord over all. 

There are three ways to develop the power of will. 

The first is to act against our own desires by forcing 
ourselves to perform acts which are disagreeable and 
painful. This method used to be prevalent in the West 
during the Middle Ages, and is to-day practiced in the 
East by Fakirs and the lower class of ascetics. It is a 
method by which people disposed to witchcraft may ob- 
tain sufficient strength of will to control some of the 
lower Elementals, and to acquire power to affect men and 
animals at a distanct by the influence of their will. It 
consists in the endurance of pain with indifference, and 
the accounts given by travelers in the East show to what 
height of absurdity such practices of Hatha yoga have 
been carried out. But while such practices may strength- 
en the will, they do not eradicate selfishness ; but they 
rather increase it. Seen in the proper light, people given 
to such practices do not act against their desires ; because 
their desire is the attainment of personal power. Pen- 
ances and tortures are therefore worse than useless for 
the higher development of the soul. 

The second way is not to follow our unlawful desires 
on account of being afraid of the consequences which 
we might have to experience if we were to be disobedient 
to the law. This is the kind of morality which is usually 
to be found in the world ; but which is based upon coward- 
ice and not upon recognition of truth. Its foundation 
is the idea to forego a small pleasure for the purpose 
of enjoying a greater pleasure of an equally selfish kind. 

Philosophical courage is a quality for which men are 
admired everywhere ; its foundation is personal vanity. 
The Red Indian prides himself at his indifference to 
physical pain, the Fakir undergoes tortures to strengthen 
his will-power, the civilised soldier is eager to prove his 
contempt for danger, and to measure his strength with 



268 MAGIC. 

the strength of the enemy. But there are deeds to per- 
form that require a courage of a superior kind. It re- 
quires only momentary outbursts of ambition to per- 
form a daring deed on the physical plane, but a continual 
and unremitted strain is needed to keep the emotions sub- 
jected, and this strain is rendered still more fatiguing 
by the circumstance that it depends entirely on our own 
will whether or not we will endure it, and that if we 
relax the bridle and allow our emotions to run free, sen- 
sual gratification will be the result. 

The performance of such deed of valour requires not 
merely a philosophical, but a theosophical courage ; name- 
ly the courage to do one's duty because it is one's duty 
to do it, and for no other reason. Therefore, the best 
way is, not to make any selfish attempts at all to over- 
come our desires; to sacrifice not merely our desires, 
but our own self with all its desires to the fountain of 
Divine Wisdom, which is to be found in the temple of 
our own heart, and to remain there even while we attend 
to the duties of life. If we enter that place, all desires 
will remain outside; they cannot enter the sacred pre- 
cinct. It requires a courage of the highest order to act 
under all circumstances in obedience to divine law. Long 
may the battle last, but each victory strengthens the will ; 
each act of submission renders it more powerful, until 
at last the combat is ended, and over the battlefield where 
the remnants of the slain desires are exposed to the de- 
composing action of the elements hovers the spiritual 
eagle, rising towards the sun and enjoying the serene 
tranquility of the ethereal realm. 

Metals are purified by fire and the spirit is purified 
by suffering. Only when the molten mass has cooled 
can we judge of the progress of the purification; only 
when a victory over the emotions is gained, and peace 
follows after the struggle, can the spirit rest to contem- 
plate and realise the beauty of eternal truth. In vain 
will men attempt to listen to the voice of truth during 
the clash of contending desires and opinions, only in the 
silence that follows the storm can the voice of truth be 
heard.* 

* "Light on the Path," by M. C. 



THEOSOPHY. 269 

The fourth requirement to the recognition of the truth 
is therefore 

TO BE SILENT. 

This means that we must not allow any desire to speak 
in our heart, but only the voice of the truth; because 
the truth is a jealous goddess and suffers no rivals. He 
who selects wisdom for the bride of his soul must woo 
her with his whole heart and dismiss the concubines 
from the bridal chamber of his soul. He must clothe 
her in the purity of his affection and ornament her with 
the gold of his love, for wisdom is modest, she does not 
adorn herself but waits until she is adorned by her lover. 
She cannot be bought with money nor with promises, 
her love is only gained by acts of devotion. Science 
is only the handmaid of wisdom, and he who makes love 
to the servant will be rejected by the mistress; but he 
who sacrifices his whole being to wisdom will be united 
with it. 

The Bhagwat Gita says : "He who thinketh constantly 
of me, his mind undiverted by any other object, will find 
me. I will at all times be easily found by a constant de- 
votion to me." 

The Christian Mystic, Jackob Boehme, an illuminated 
seer, expresses the same truth, in the form of a dialogue 
between the master and his disciple, as follows: 

The disciple said to the master: "How can I succeed 
in arriving at that supersensual life, in which I may see 
and hear the Supreme ?" 

The master answered : "If you can only for a moment 
enter in thought into the formless, where no creature 
resides, you will hear the voice of the Supreme." 

The disciple said: "Is this far or near?" 

The master answered: "It is in yourself, and if you 
can command only for one hour the silence of your de- 
sires, you will hear the inexpressible words of the Su- 
preme. If your own will and self are silent in you, the 
perception of the eternal will be manifest through you; 
God will hear, and see, and talk through you; your own 
hearing, desiring, and seeing prevents you to see and 
hear the Supreme."* 

♦Jackob Boehme: "Theosophical Writings," book vi. 



270 MAGIC. 

These directions are identical with those prescribed by 
the practice of Raja-Yog, by which the holy men of 
the East unite their minds with the formless and infinite* 
All religious ceremonies are calculated to elevate the 
mind into the region of the formless, and, in fact all 
religious systems can have no other ultimate object than 
to teach methods how to attain such states. AH churches 
are not worthy the name of "church," which means a 
spiritual union, unless they serve as schools in which the 
science of uniting oneself with the eternal fountain of 
life is practically taught. But it is easier to allow one's 
mind to revel among the multifarious forms and attrac- 
tions of the material plane, or to go through forms of 
external "worship ;" than to enter into nothingness, where 
at first no sound is heard but the echo of our voice. It 
is easier to let our minds be controlled by thoughts that 
visit the mind than to close the doors of the soul to all 
thoughts that have not the seal of truth impressed upon 
their forms; and this is the reason why the majority of 
men and women prefer the illusions of finite life to the 
eternal realities of the infinite ; why they prefer ignorance 
to a knowledge of truth. 

To be silent means to let no other language be heard 
within the heart but the language of God, to listen to the 
voice of Divine Wisdom speaking within the heart* 

He who has learned to know, to will, to dare, and to 
be silent, is upon the true path that leads to immortal 
life, but by those who move merely in the sensual plane, 
or whose minds are absorbed in external things of the 
intellectual plane even the meaning of these words will 
not be understood. 

Various instructions are given in the books of the East 
in regard to the practice of this silence and interior medi- 
tation, but they all teach the same thing, namely, a con- 
centration of man's higher consciousness to a single point 
within his own centre. 

In the Oupnekhata the following directions are 
given : — 

"Breathe deep and slow, and concentrate your un- 
wavering attention into the midst of your body, into the 

* H. P. Blavatsky. "The voice of the silence." 



THEOSOPHY. B71 

region of the heart. The lamp in your body will then be 
protected against wind and motion, and your whole body 
will become illuminated. You must withdraw all your 
senses within yourself like a turtle, which withdraws its 
members within the shell. Enter your own heart and 
guard it, and Brahma will enter it like a fire or a stroke 
of lightning. In the midst of the big fire in your heart 
will be a small flame, and in the centre of it will be Altma" 

Herocarcas, an abbot of a convent upon the mount 
Athos, gives to his monks the following directions to 
acquire the power of true clairvoyance: "Sit alone in 
your room, after having the door locked against intru- 
sion, concentrate your mind upon the region of the navel 
and try to see with that. Try to find the seat of your 
heart (sink your consciousness into your heart), where 
the centre of power resides. At first you will find noth- 
ing but darkness; but if you continue for days and 
nights without fatigue, you will see light, and experience 
inexpressible things. When the spirit once recognises its 
own centre in the heart, it will know what it never knew 
before, and there will be nothing hidden before its sight, 
whether in heaven or upon the earth." 

Let us compare with these statements one received 
from an unknown uneducated person, who is an illumi- 
nate of our times. He has never heard of the Oupnekata 
nor of' Herocarcas; but he possesses the power to see in- 
terior truths. He says : "Sink your thoughts downward 
into the centre of your being, and you will find there a 
germ which, if continually nourished by pure and holy 
thoughts, will grow into a power that will extend and 
ramify through all parts of your body. Your hands and 
feet and your body will become alive; a sun will appear 
within your heart and illuminate your whole being. In 
this light you will see the present, the past, and the 
future, and by its aid you will attain the true knowledge 
of self." 

Man is himself a creation of thought, pervading the 
ocean of Mind. If his soul is in perfect accord with the 
truth, the truth will be one with his soul. A talented 
musician will not need a scientific calculation of the vibra- 
tions of sound to know whether a melody which he hears 



273 MAGIC. 

is melodious or not; a person who is one with the truth 
will recognise himself in the mirrors of every external 
manifestation of truth. 

The highest magical power in nature is Wisdom; it 
is the oneness of Intelligence, Will and Law. It is the 
highest ideal that man can possess. The highest power of 
the soul is to express wisdom in language, the highest 
power of physical man is to embody that language in acts. 

Every form in Nature is a symbol of an idea and 
represents a sign, or a letter, or a word ; and a succession 
of such symbols forms a language. Nature is therefore 
the divine language, in which the Universal Mind ex- 
presses its ideas. The individual mind which is developed 
to such a state of perfection as to form the best instrument 
through which the highest intelligence can manifest itself, 
will be the most apt to realise the meaning of that lan- 
guage. The highest secrets of Nature are, therefore ac- 
cessible to him whose mental constitution is so perfected 
as to enable him to understand the language of nature. 

Such a language means a radiation of the essence of 
things into the centre of the human mind, and a radia- 
tion from that centre into the universal ocean of mind. 
Man in a state of purity, being an image and an external 
expression of the highest spiritual power, is able to reflect 
and reproduce the highest truth in its original purity, 
and man's expressions ought therefore to be a perfect 
reproduction or echo of the impressions which he receives 
from the sphere of eternal truth; but average man being 
immersed in matter, as a result of a combination of prin- 
ciples on a lower scale of evolution, receives the pure 
original rays only in a state of refraction, and can there- 
fore reproduce them only in an imperfect condition. He 
has wandered away from the sun of truth, and beholding 
it from a distance it appears to him only as a small star, 
about to vanish from sight. Everything in Nature has 
its natural name, and he who has the power to call a thing 
by that name can call its form into existence. This proper 
name of a thing is its character, the expression of the 
totality of its powers and attributes, to cause the truth in 
a thing to become manifest by the spiritual power of the 
living word, is to call it into existence. This cannot be 



THEOSOPHY. 273 

done by any merely external language ; but by the living 
power of the spirit, of which the external expression is 
merely an outward symbol and form.* 

There is only one genuine and interior language for 
man, the symbols of which are natural and must be in- 
telligible to all, and this language is an interior direct 
communication of thought. This interior language is 
the parent of the exterior one, and being caused by the 
radiation of the first cause which is unity and with whom 
all men are one, it follows that if the original radiation 
of the supreme ray were existing in all men in its origin- 
al purity, all men would understand the same language. 
There exists such an external language, which is a per- 
fect expression of that interior one; but this language is 
known to only few and it cannot be artificially acquired. 
He who knows the internal language will also know the 
external one. The interior language breathes spirit; 
while the exterior one is only a succession of sounds. 
The key to that interior language is in the divine Word, 
the key to the exterior one is the mental organisation of 
collective bodies of men. Man in his present condition 
hears the voice which speaks that interior language, but 
does not understand it; he sees the sacred symbols, but 
does not comprehend them; his ear is accustomed to 
connect certain meanings with certain sounds, but the 
true vibrations are lost; he understands human writings 
in books, but he cannot divine the hieroglyphics that ex- 
press the true nature of things. 

Each character has its own true symbol and form, 
which express its nature; each symbol is a thing repre- 
senting the essential character of a certain power, and 
this character can therefore be recognised by him who 
knows the language of nature in the same way as an 
artist recognises the character of another artist, by sim- 
ply beholding his work. 

Men have ever been desiring an universal language. 
Such an universal language cannot be arbitrarily con- 
structed, or if so constructed, would be more difficult to 
learn than any other. True language must express the 

* "There are three states of Vach or 'word,' each more interior 

than the other, and each has three elements; the meaning, the 

thought and its expression in sound." Subba Rao, "Lectures on 
the Bhagavad Gita." 



274 MAGIC. 

harmony of the soul with the nature of things, and as 
long as there is a differentiation of national character 
and disharmony there can be no universal harmonious 
language. 

There is a threefold expression of divine essence; 
a physical, an intellectual, and a divine word. The first 
is the language of nature, the second the language of 
reason, the third one is the language of God, which is 
thought, speech and action in one, and which is therefore 
a creative power. Each true symbol or form is an exter- 
nal image of an internal state. Each body is the symbol 
of an invisible and corresponding power, and Man, in 
whom the highest powers are contained, is the most noble 
symbol in nature, the first and most beautiful letter in 
the alphabet of earth. If he were true to his own divine 
nature, his body would be a body of light, a perfect 
expression of beauty. For every thought there is an 
outward expression, and if we have a thought which we 
cannot express by symbols, it does not follow that such 
symbols do not exist, but that we are unacquainted with 
them. A word or a language is the expression of thought, 
and to be perfect it must give perfect expression to the 
thought it is intended to convey. By giving a false ex- 
pression to thought the true power of language is lost. 
In our present state of civilization words are used more 
for the purpose of concealing than revealing thought. 
Lying involves a loss of spiritual power. To give pure 
and perfect expression to thought is White Magic ; to act 
upon the imagination so as to create false impressions is 
witchcraft, deception, and falsehood. Such witchcraft 
is practised every day and almost in every station of life, 
from the priest in the pulpit who wheedles his audience 
into a belief that he possesses the keys of heaven, down 
to the merchant who cheats with his goods, and the old 
maid securing a husband by means of artificial teeth and 
false hair. Such practices are publicly denounced but 
silently followed; they lead to a universal disappearance 
of faith and trust, they will necessarily lead to active evil 
and bring destruction upon the nation that allows them to 
grow; because, as the power of good increases by prac- 
tice, in the same manner increases the power of evil. 



THEOSOPHY. S75 

Man's mission is to do the highest good to himself that 
means to do that which is most useful for his highest 
development, and being in his true nature universal and 
unlimited, his highest good can only be obtained by 
working for the benefit of the whole world and not for 
his own limited personality. 

In this way his nature will become more refined, and 
its interior illuminated by the light of divine wisdom. 
By living attached to "self" he attracts to himself the 
unintelligent and material principles of Nature, his consti- 
tution becomes more material, degraded and heavy until, 
unable to rise to the true light, he becomes metaphysi- 
cally petrified, lost in the astral plane. 

Man's actions are his writings. By putting his thoughts 
into action, he expresses them and records them in the 
book of life. Every evil act is followed by a degradation 
of character, a metaphysical incrustation of the soul. 
Good actions dissolve existing incrustations produced 
by evil deeds, and re-establish the soul in its former con- 
dition. Repentance, unless followed by a change of na- 
ture, is useless. It is like the inflammation caused by a 
thorn in the flesh ; it causes pain, and unless the cause is 
removed putrefaction will be the result. Man's acts are 
his creations, they give expression to his thoughts. The 
motive endows them with character, the will furnishes 
them with life. 

An intention is practically useless as long as it is not 
put into practice. A sign, a letter, or a word is useless 
unless it conveys a meaning; a symbol represents an 
idea, but no symbol can be efficacious unless one masters 
that which it represents. The most potent magical signs 
are useless to him who cannot spiritually in his soul realise 
what they mean, while in him who has soul-knowledge, 
the use of a single point, a line, or any geometrical 
figure, may put spiritual powers into action. 

Let us in conclusion attempt to explain exoterically 
and esoterically a few of the most important magical 
signs. We may succeed to a certain extent in giving 
these explanations in words; but their spiritual meaning 
cannot be expressed in language nor even in music; 
language can merely attempt to guide the reader into 



276 MAGIC. 

a region of thought in which he may be able to perceive 
the secret meaning with the eye of the spirit ; if he has 
the power of perceiving the truth spiritually by the light 
of the truth. 




The Pentagram or the Five-pointed Star. 



In its external appearance it is merely a geometrical 
figure, found everywhere as a trade mark or ornament. 
Superstitions and credulous people once believed, that if 
it were drawn upon the doors of their houses it would 
protect them against the intrusions of the sorcerer and 
the witch. 

In its esoteric signification it symbolises Man. The 
four lower triangles represent the four elementary forces 
of nature, and as the lines of each triangle are inti- 
mately connected or identical with those forming the 
other lines, the sum of these lines forming only one 
broken line without any interruption, likewise the four 
lower elements are intimately connected and identical 
with the fifth element, the quintessence of all things, 
situated at the top of the figure; representing the head, 
the seat of intelligence. 

The spiritual knowledge of the Five-pointed Star is 
identical with its practical application. Let us beware 



THEOSOPHY. 



877 



that the figure is always well drawn, leaving no open 
space, through which the enemy can enter and disturb 
the harmony existing in the Pentagon. Let us keep 
the figure always right, with the topmost triangle point- 
ing to heaven, for it is the seat of Wisdom, and if the 
figure is reversed perversion and evil will be the result. 
Let the lines be straight, so that all the triangles will be 
harmonious and of equal size, so that the symbol will 
grow without any abnormal development of one princi- 
ple at the cost of another. Then the lower triangles will 
send their quintessence to the top, the seat of intelli- 
gence, and the top will supply the lower triangles with 
power and induce them to grow. Then, when the time 
of probation and development is over, the triangles will 
be absorbed by the Pentagon in the centre, and form 
into a square within the invisible circle connecting the 
apices of the triangles, and our destiny will be fulfilled. 
There is no higher duty for man to perform, than to 
keep the Five-pointed Spiritual Star intact ; it will be his 
protection during life and his salvation in the hereafter. 




The Double Triangle or Six-pointed Star. 
This is one of the most important magical signs, and 



278 MAGIC. 

practically applied it invests man with magic power. 
Its exoteric meaning is merely two triangles joined to- 
gether, so that they partially cover each other, while the 
apex of one points upwards and the apex of the other 
downward. It is sometimes surrounded by a circle or 
by a snake biting its tail, and sometimes with a tau in 
the middle. 

Its esoteric meaning is very extensive. It represents 
among other things the descent of spirit into matter, 
and the ascension of matter to spirit, which is contin- 
ually taking place within the circle of eternity, repre- 
sented by the snake, the symbol of wisdom. Six points 
are seen in the star, but the seventh cannot be seen; 
nevertheless the seventh point must exist unmanifested, 
it not having become manifest ; because without a centre 
there could be no six-pointed star, nor any other figure 
existing. 

But who can describe in words the secret spiritual and 
universal signification of the six-pointed star and its 
invisible centre? Who can intellectually grasp and de- 
scribe the beauties and truths which it represents ? Only 
he who experiences in his own divine nature the power 
of this sign can practically apply it, and he who can 
apply it practically is an Adept. Knowing that sign 
practically means to realise the nature of "God," to be 
God and know, and the laws of eternal nature, it means 
to know by experience the process of evolution and in- 
volution of matter and spirit; to realise how the life- 
impulse travels from planet to planet, beginning with 
the evolution of the elemental kingdom, rising up 
through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdom, 
and at last evolving a god-like being out of animal man. 
To him who cannot realise within his heart the divine 
mysteries of nature, the blinding light shining from the 
centre of the figure has no existence; but the Adept 
knows that invisible centre, the great Spiritual Sun, the 
heart of the Cosmos, from which Love and Light and 
Life are radiating for ever. He sees the seven primor- 
dial rays of that light shining into invisible matter and 
forming visible worlds upon which men and animals live 
and die, and are happy or discontented according to 



THEOSOPHY. 



879 



their conditions. He sees how by the breath of that in- 
visible centre suns and stars, planets and satellities are 
evolved, and how if the day of creation of forms is over, 
it reabsorbs them into its bosom. Verily the six-pointed 
star is a most potent magical sign, and it requires the 
wisdom of God to understand it, and the omnipotent 
power of Life to apply it to its fullest extent. 

In its external signification the Christian Cross is a 
symbol of torture and death. The sight of a Cross calls 
up in the mind of the pious the memory of a historical 
event said to have taken place in Palestine some two 
thousand years ago, when a noble, good, and just man, 
an incarnation of God, is said to have been executed as 
a criminal upon a cross. 



lam (Water). 
I. 



Iitoe$hah (Earth). 
I 



ftfour(Fire). 



R. 
Attach (Ajr>. # 

nw 
The Cross. 



• Compare J. R. Skinner, "Key to the Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery.* 



280 MAGIC 

The esoteric meaning of the Cross is very ancient, and 
the Cross has existed as a secret symbol probably thou- 
sands of years ago before the Christian era. It is found 
in the ancient cavetemples of India and Egypt, where it 
was hewn in stone long before Christianity was known. 
The philosophical Cross represents, among other things, 
the principle of matter and that of spirit intersecting 
each other, forming the quaternary which, when it is 
inscribed in the square, forms the basis of knowledge 
for the Occultist. The horizontal line represents the 
animal principle, for the heads of animals are bowed to 
the earth. Man is the only being upon the globe who 
stands erect; the divine principle within him keeps him 
morally erect, and therefore the perpendicular line is 
the symbol of his divinity. The cross represents Man, 
who has acted against the law and thereby transformed 
himself into an instrument for his own torture. From 
the beginning of his existence as a ray of the divine 
spiritual Sun he represented a perpendicular line, cutting 
in the direction of the source from which he emanated 
in the beginning. As the distance from that source in- 
creased, and as the ray entered into matter, it deviated 
from the originally straight line and became broken; 
creating thereby a division in its own essence and making 
two parts out of the original Unity; thus establishing 
a will and imagination of its own, acting not in accord- 
ance with the Law, but even in opposition to it. If maa 
follows again the dictates of the Law, he will then be 
taken from the Cross and resume his former position. 
"To take up one's Cross," means to submit one's own 
desires to the rule of divine Law. 

Who can know the practical spiritual signification of 
the Cross except spiritual man, who by his incarnation in 
a terrestrial human form has become nailed to the cross 
of suffering the ills of the flesh and its temptations, nor 
can he regain his freedom unless the terrestrial man dies 
the mystic death for him, by nailing his self-will to the 
cross of the law and dying the mystic death, so that the 
true man may live. 

On the head of the christian cross there are inscribed 
the letters I.N.R.L, which in its exoteric meaning is 



THEOSOPHY. 881 

said to read "Jesus Nazarenus, Rex Indeorum." This 
means that the light of Divine Wisdom is the king of 
all knowledge, and must rule over all intellectual specu- 
lations, to which not only the Jews, but also our modern 
philosophers are devoted; but the Rosicrusian meaning 
of these letters was : In Nobis Regnat Jesus, and this 
truth will also be realised only by those who are in pos- 
session of immortal life: and because in them the true 
Jesus, the spiritual soul, illumined by the light of Divine 
Wisdom, has awakened to life and is actually the Lord 
and ruler of their interior kingdom. 

In its practical application the Cross represents the 
self-recognition of Divine Truth. He whose spiritual 
perception is open sees the living Cross in its glory. 
Sublimely stands that Cross upon the mountain of self- 
knowledge, magnificent is its aspect. Far into heaven 
shines the light radiating from its centre and illumin- 
ating the darkness with its beneficent rays. Rise, oh 
man, up to your true dignity, so that you may see the 
meaning of the true Cross. Not the dead wooden Cross, 
the emblem of ignorance and suffering, nor the glittering 
cross made of brass, the emblem of vanity, sectarianism 
and superstition; but the true Cross, made of the pure 
gold of the light of Wisdom which each true Brother of 
the Golden and Rosy Cross carries deeply buried within 
his own heart. This cross is the full-grown Tree of Life 
and of Knowledge, bearing the fruits of salvation and 
immortality, the dispenser of Life, the protector against 
evil. He who knows practically the true mystery of the 
Cross is acquainted with the highest wisdom ; he who 
Is adorned with the true Cross is safe from all danger. 
Infinite power of the Cross ! In thee the Truth is re- 
vealed. Buried deep in the darkness of Earth is thy 
foot, teaching us Patience; high into the light of heaven 
reaches thy crown, teaching us Faith. Lifted by Hope 
and extended by Charity are thy arms, light and sun- 
shine surround thee. Link upon link the chain of crea- 
tion encircles the Cross ; worlds within worlds, forms 
within forms, illusions upon illusions. But in the Centre 
is the Reality in which is hidden the jewel of priceless 
value, the Truth. Let the dew of heaven which comes 



282 MAGIC 

from the true Cross descend into your hearts and pene- 
trate into your soul and body, so that it may crystallize 
into form. Then will the darkness within your mind 
disappear, the veil of matter will be rent, and before 
your spiritual vision will stand revealed the angel of 
truth. Truly! no one can be a real christian unless he 
practically realises in his soul the meaning of the symbol 
of the Cross; the self-revelation of Truth. 

The present material age is ever ready to reject with- 
out examination the symbols of the past whose meaning 
it cannot realise because it does not possess the treasures 
which they represent. Engage/1 in the pursuit of materi- 
al pleasures, it loses sight of divine wisdom and ex- 
changes spiritual wealth for worthless baubles. Losing 
sight of his divine destiny, man runs after shadows, 
closing his eye to the Light of the World. Ruled by fear, 
man bows before the Moloch of superstition and igno- 
rance, rushes madly into the arms of a dead and cold 
agnostic science to perish in its stony embrace; but the 
wise, whose far-seeing perception reaches beyond the 
narrow circle of his material surroundings and beyond the 
short span of time which includes one of his lives on 
this earth, knows that it is in his power to control his 
future destiny. He raises the magic wand of his will 
and quiets the tempest of the soul. The forces which 
were rushing to his destruction obey him and execute 
his orders, and he walks safely upon the waters under 
whose calm surface is hidden the abyss of death, while 
above his head shines that bright constellation formed 
of Truth, Knowledge, and Power, whose centre is the 
Law and whose germs can be found in the spiritual self- 
consciousness of every human being. 



APPENDIX 



R NEW GUIDE APPENDIX ON THE PATH, 

FOR THOSE WHO DESIRE TO FOLLOW THE PRACTICAL 

WAY. 

1. Know that All is One. 

2. Know that everything is Thyself. 

3. Know that the One in a state of vibration pro- 
duces the great multiplicity of forms and activities in 
the Universe. 

4. Know that if you examine this multiplicity from 
the standpoint of your intellectual reasoning, you will 
arrive at the following deductions: 

5. Everything that you call "Life," "Energy," "Sub- 
stance," is a Duality. 

6. Everything has a tendency to return to Unity. 

7. All desire and therefore all suffering originates 
from duality. 

8. Let thy aspiration be for enlightenment. 

9. Know that the result of the joys experienced by 
the attainment of enlightenment is happiness. 

10. Rise above the state of condensation. 

11. Know that the result of the joys experienced in 
the state of condensation is suffering. 

12. On the road from Unity in motion to tranquillity 
is the state of condensation. It is the cause of your 
illusions, because you imagine it to be tranquillity; and 
it is the cause of your doubts, because you regard it as 
the object of your desires. 

Know that the striving after the unification of the 
duality is the only source of your will, your desires, and 
of those joys whose results you call "suffering." 

283 



284 MAGIC. 

13. Know that the door for the solution of that which 
is fixed is what is called "Matter." 

14. Know that everything has to pass through that 
door. 

15. Know that the door for the solution of the fixed 
is also called "Life." 

16. Know that everything has to pass through that 
door. 

17. And that the long sojourn in "Matter" and the 
interruption of the voyage by "Life" means retardation 
in the solution of the fixed and procrastination in the 
unification of the duality. 

18. Enforce the practice of the power of that which 
is solved over that which is condensed. 

19. Direct your attention to the consciousness of that 
which is dissolved over that which is condensed. 

20. Carry this consciousness through all the planes 
of your being. 

I 21. Elevate your whole body to the capacity to think, 
to hear, and to see. 

22. Cause it thereby to become a fit instrument for 
the use of your self-consciousness of the One and of your 
self-power resulting from unification) . 

23. Conquer the pains resulting therefrom. 

24. When the divine Language is once heard within 
thy heart — when the Ring within thy interior has once 
obtained dominion — when thou hast passed through 
water and fire, and thy spirit has become the life of thy 
blood — then you may say: / am, I go, and I remain. 

THE END OF THE BOOK MAGIC, BLACK AND WHITE. 
DE LAWRENCE, SCOTT & CO. 









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